Of
all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and
may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever
dreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings, more than
the author himself knew. For in philosophy as in prophecy glimpses of
the future may often be conveyed in words which could hardly have been
understood or interpreted at the time when they were uttered (compare
Symp.)--which were wiser than the writer of them meant, and could not
have been expressed by him if he had been interrogated about them. Yet
Plato was not a mystic, nor in any degree affected by the Eastern
influences which afterwards overspread the Alexandrian world. He was
not an enthusiast or a sentimentalist, but one who aspired only to see
reasoned truth, and whose thoughts are clearly explained in his
language. There is no foreign element either of Egypt or of Asia to be
found in his writings. And more than any other Platonic work the
Symposium is Greek both in style and subject, having a beauty 'as of a
statue,' while the companion Dialogue of the Phaedrus is marked by a
sort of Gothic irregularity. More too than in any other of his
Dialogues, Plato is emancipated from former philosophies. The genius of
Greek art seems to triumph over the traditions of Pythagorean, Eleatic,
or Megarian systems, and 'the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy' has
at least a superficial reconcilement. (Rep.)

An unknown person
who had heard of the discourses in praise of love spoken by Socrates
and others at the banquet of Agathon is desirous of having an authentic
account of them, which he thinks that he can obtain from Apollodorus,
the same excitable, or rather 'mad' friend of Socrates, who is
afterwards introduced in the Phaedo. He had imagined that the
discourses were recent. There he is mistaken: but they are still fresh
in the memory of his informant, who had just been repeating them to
Glaucon, and is quite prepared to have another rehearsal of them in a
walk from the Piraeus to Athens. Although he had not been present
himself, he had heard them from the best authority. Aristodemus, who is
described as having been in past times a humble but inseparable
attendant of Socrates, had reported them to him (compare Xen. Mem.).

The narrative which he had heard was as follows:--

Aristodemus
meeting Socrates in holiday attire, is invited by him to a banquet at
the house of Agathon, who had been sacrificing in thanksgiving for his
tragic victory on the day previous. But no sooner has he entered the
house than he finds that he is alone; Socrates has stayed behind in a
fit of abstraction, and does not appear until the banquet is half over.
On his appearing he and the host jest a little; the question is then
asked by Pausanias, one of the guests, 'What shall they do about
drinking? as they had been all well drunk on the day before, and
drinking on two successive days is such a bad thing.' This is confirmed
by the authority of Eryximachus the physician, who further proposes
that instead of listening to the flute-girl and her 'noise' they shall
make speeches in honour of love, one after another, going from left to
right in the order in which they are reclining at the table. All of
them agree to this proposal, and Phaedrus, who is the 'father' of the
idea, which he has previously communicated to Eryximachus, begins as
follows:--

He descants first of all upon the antiquity of love,
which is proved by the authority of the poets; secondly upon the
benefits which love gives to man. The greatest of these is the sense of
honour and dishonour. The lover is ashamed to be seen by the beloved
doing or suffering any cowardly or mean act. And a state or army which
was made up only of lovers and their loves would be invincible. For
love will convert the veriest coward into an inspired hero.

And
there have been true loves not only of men but of women also. Such was
the love of Alcestis, who dared to die for her husband, and in
recompense of her virtue was allowed to come again from the dead. But
Orpheus, the miserable harper, who went down to Hades alive, that he
might bring back his wife, was mocked with an apparition only, and the
gods afterwards contrived his death as the punishment of his
cowardliness. The love of Achilles, like that of Alcestis, was
courageous and true; for he was willing to avenge his lover Patroclus,
although he knew that his own death would immediately follow: and the
gods, who honour the love of the beloved above that of the lover,
rewarded him, and sent him to the islands of the blest.

Pausanias,
who was sitting next, then takes up the tale:--He says that Phaedrus
should have distinguished the heavenly love from the earthly, before he
praised either. For there are two loves, as there are two
Aphrodites--one the daughter of Uranus, who has no mother and is the
elder and wiser goddess, and the other, the daughter of Zeus and Dione,
who is popular and common. The first of the two loves has a noble
purpose, and delights only in the intelligent nature of man, and is
faithful to the end, and has no shadow of wantonness or lust. The
second is the coarser kind of love, which is a love of the body rather
than of the soul, and is of women and boys as well as of men. Now the
actions of lovers vary, like every other sort of action, according to
the manner of their performance. And in different countries there is a
difference of opinion about male loves. Some, like the Boeotians,
approve of them; others, like the Ionians, and most of the barbarians,
disapprove of them; partly because they are aware of the political
dangers which ensue from them, as may be seen in the instance of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton. At Athens and Sparta there is an apparent
contradiction about them. For at times they are encouraged, and then
the lover is allowed to play all sorts of fantastic tricks; he may
swear and forswear himself (and 'at lovers' perjuries they say Jove
laughs'); he may be a servant, and lie on a mat at the door of his
love, without any loss of character; but there are also times when
elders look grave and guard their young relations, and personal remarks
are made. The truth is that some of these loves are disgraceful and
others honourable. The vulgar love of the body which takes wing and
flies away when the bloom of youth is over, is disgraceful, and so is
the interested love of power or wealth; but the love of the noble mind
is lasting. The lover should be tested, and the beloved should not be
too ready to yield. The rule in our country is that the beloved may do
the same service to the lover in the way of virtue which the lover may
do to him.

A voluntary service to be rendered for the sake of
virtue and wisdom is permitted among us; and when these two
customs--one the love of youth, the other the practice of virtue and
philosophy--meet in one, then the lovers may lawfully unite. Nor is
there any disgrace to a disinterested lover in being deceived: but the
interested lover is doubly disgraced, for if he loses his love he loses
his character; whereas the noble love of the other remains the same,
although the object of his love is unworthy: for nothing can be nobler
than love for the sake of virtue. This is that love of the heavenly
goddess which is of great price to individuals and cities, making them
work together for their improvement.

The turn of Aristophanes
comes next; but he has the hiccough, and therefore proposes that
Eryximachus the physician shall cure him or speak in his turn.
Eryximachus is ready to do both, and after prescribing for the
hiccough, speaks as follows:--

He agrees with Pausanias in
maintaining that there are two kinds of love; but his art has led him
to the further conclusion that the empire of this double love extends
over all things, and is to be found in animals and plants as well as in
man. In the human body also there are two loves; and the art of
medicine shows which is the good and which is the bad love, and
persuades the body to accept the good and reject the bad, and
reconciles conflicting elements and makes them friends. Every art,
gymnastic and husbandry as well as medicine, is the reconciliation of
opposites; and this is what Heracleitus meant, when he spoke of a
harmony of opposites: but in strictness he should rather have spoken of
a harmony which succeeds opposites, for an agreement of disagreements
there cannot be. Music too is concerned with the principles of love in
their application to harmony and rhythm. In the abstract, all is
simple, and we are not troubled with the twofold love; but when they
are applied in education with their accompaniments of song and metre,
then the discord begins. Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair
Urania and the coarse Polyhymnia, who must be indulged sparingly, just
as in my own art of medicine care must be taken that the taste of the
epicure be gratified without inflicting upon him the attendant penalty
of disease.

There is a similar harmony or disagreement in the
course of the seasons and in the relations of moist and dry, hot and
cold, hoar frost and blight; and diseases of all sorts spring from the
excesses or disorders of the element of love. The knowledge of these
elements of love and discord in the heavenly bodies is termed
astronomy, in the relations of men towards gods and parents is called
divination. For divination is the peacemaker of gods and men, and works
by a knowledge of the tendencies of merely human loves to piety and
impiety. Such is the power of love; and that love which is just and
temperate has the greatest power, and is the source of all our
happiness and friendship with the gods and with one another. I dare say
that I have omitted to mention many things which you, Aristophanes, may
supply, as I perceive that you are cured of the hiccough.

Aristophanes is the next speaker:--

He
professes to open a new vein of discourse, in which he begins by
treating of the origin of human nature. The sexes were originally
three, men, women, and the union of the two; and they were made
round--having four hands, four feet, two faces on a round neck, and the
rest to correspond. Terrible was their strength and swiftness; and they
were essaying to scale heaven and attack the gods. Doubt reigned in the
celestial councils; the gods were divided between the desire of
quelling the pride of man and the fear of losing the sacrifices. At
last Zeus hit upon an expedient. Let us cut them in two, he said; then
they will only have half their strength, and we shall have twice as
many sacrifices. He spake, and split them as you might split an egg
with an hair; and when this was done, he told Apollo to give their
faces a twist and re-arrange their persons, taking out the wrinkles and
tying the skin in a knot about the navel. The two halves went about
looking for one another, and were ready to die of hunger in one
another's arms. Then Zeus invented an adjustment of the sexes, which
enabled them to marry and go their way to the business of life. Now the
characters of men differ accordingly as they are derived from the
original man or the original woman, or the original man-woman. Those
who come from the man-woman are lascivious and adulterous; those who
come from the woman form female attachments; those who are a section of
the male follow the male and embrace him, and in him all their desires
centre. The pair are inseparable and live together in pure and manly
affection; yet they cannot tell what they want of one another. But if
Hephaestus were to come to them with his instruments and propose that
they should be melted into one and remain one here and hereafter, they
would acknowledge that this was the very expression of their want. For
love is the desire of the whole, and the pursuit of the whole is called
love. There was a time when the two sexes were only one, but now God
has halved them,--much as the Lacedaemonians have cut up the
Arcadians,--and if they do not behave themselves he will divide them
again, and they will hop about with half a nose and face in basso
relievo. Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may obtain
the goods of which love is the author, and be reconciled to God, and
find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world. And now I
must beg you not to suppose that I am alluding to Pausanias and Agathon
(compare Protag.), for my words refer to all mankind everywhere.

Some
raillery ensues first between Aristophanes and Eryximachus, and then
between Agathon, who fears a few select friends more than any number of
spectators at the theatre, and Socrates, who is disposed to begin an
argument. This is speedily repressed by Phaedrus, who reminds the
disputants of their tribute to the god. Agathon's speech follows:--

He
will speak of the god first and then of his gifts: He is the fairest
and blessedest and best of the gods, and also the youngest, having had
no existence in the old days of Iapetus and Cronos when the gods were
at war. The things that were done then were done of necessity and not
of love. For love is young and dwells in soft places,--not like Ate in
Homer, walking on the skulls of men, but in their hearts and souls,
which are soft enough. He is all flexibility and grace, and his
habitation is among the flowers, and he cannot do or suffer wrong; for
all men serve and obey him of their own free will, and where there is
love there is obedience, and where obedience, there is justice; for
none can be wronged of his own free will. And he is temperate as well
as just, for he is the ruler of the desires, and if he rules them he
must be temperate. Also he is courageous, for he is the conqueror of
the lord of war. And he is wise too; for he is a poet, and the author
of poesy in others. He created the animals; he is the inventor of the
arts; all the gods are his subjects; he is the fairest and best
himself, and the cause of what is fairest and best in others; he makes
men to be of one mind at a banquet, filling them with affection and
emptying them of disaffection; the pilot, helper, defender, saviour of
men, in whose footsteps let every man follow, chanting a strain of
love. Such is the discourse, half playful, half serious, which I
dedicate to the god.

The turn of Socrates comes next. He begins
by remarking satirically that he has not understood the terms of the
original agreement, for he fancied that they meant to speak the true
praises of love, but now he finds that they only say what is good of
him, whether true or false. He begs to be absolved from speaking
falsely, but he is willing to speak the truth, and proposes to begin by
questioning Agathon. The result of his questions may be summed up as
follows:--

Love is of something, and that which love desires is
not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or
has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful.
And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring
the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good. Socrates professes
to have asked the same questions and to have obtained the same answers
from Diotima, a wise woman of Mantinea, who, like Agathon, had spoken
first of love and then of his works. Socrates, like Agathon, had told
her that Love is a mighty god and also fair, and she had shown him in
return that Love was neither, but in a mean between fair and foul, good
and evil, and not a god at all, but only a great demon or intermediate
power (compare the speech of Eryximachus) who conveys to the gods the
prayers of men, and to men the commands of the gods.

Socrates
asks: Who are his father and mother? To this Diotima replies that he is
the son of Plenty and Poverty, and partakes of the nature of both, and
is full and starved by turns. Like his mother he is poor and squalid,
lying on mats at doors (compare the speech of Pausanias); like his
father he is bold and strong, and full of arts and resources. Further,
he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge:--in this he resembles
the philosopher who is also in a mean between the wise and the
ignorant. Such is the nature of Love, who is not to be confused with
the beloved.

But Love desires the beautiful; and then arises the
question, What does he desire of the beautiful? He desires, of course,
the possession of the beautiful;--but what is given by that? For the
beautiful let us substitute the good, and we have no difficulty in
seeing the possession of the good to be happiness, and Love to be the
desire of happiness, although the meaning of the word has been too
often confined to one kind of love. And Love desires not only the good,
but the everlasting possession of the good. Why then is there all this
flutter and excitement about love? Because all men and women at a
certain age are desirous of bringing to the birth. And love is not of
beauty only, but of birth in beauty; this is the principle of
immortality in a mortal creature. When beauty approaches, then the
conceiving power is benign and diffuse; when foulness, she is averted
and morose.

But why again does this extend not only to men but
also to animals? Because they too have an instinct of immortality. Even
in the same individual there is a perpetual succession as well of the
parts of the material body as of the thoughts and desires of the mind;
nay, even knowledge comes and goes. There is no sameness of existence,
but the new mortality is always taking the place of the old. This is
the reason why parents love their children--for the sake of
immortality; and this is why men love the immortality of fame. For the
creative soul creates not children, but conceptions of wisdom and
virtue, such as poets and other creators have invented. And the noblest
creations of all are those of legislators, in honour of whom temples
have been raised. Who would not sooner have these children of the mind
than the ordinary human ones? (Compare Bacon's Essays, 8:--'Certainly
the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from
the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means have
married and endowed the public.')

I will now initiate you, she
said, into the greater mysteries; for he who would proceed in due
course should love first one fair form, and then many, and learn the
connexion of them; and from beautiful bodies he should proceed to
beautiful minds, and the beauty of laws and institutions, until he
perceives that all beauty is of one kindred; and from institutions he
should go on to the sciences, until at last the vision is revealed to
him of a single science of universal beauty, and then he will behold
the everlasting nature which is the cause of all, and will be near the
end. In the contemplation of that supreme being of love he will be
purified of earthly leaven, and will behold beauty, not with the bodily
eye, but with the eye of the mind, and will bring forth true creations
of virtue and wisdom, and be the friend of God and heir of immortality.

Such,
Phaedrus, is the tale which I heard from the stranger of Mantinea, and
which you may call the encomium of love, or what you please.

The
company applaud the speech of Socrates, and Aristophanes is about to
say something, when suddenly a band of revellers breaks into the court,
and the voice of Alcibiades is heard asking for Agathon. He is led in
drunk, and welcomed by Agathon, whom he has come to crown with a
garland. He is placed on a couch at his side, but suddenly, on
recognizing Socrates, he starts up, and a sort of conflict is carried
on between them, which Agathon is requested to appease. Alcibiades then
insists that they shall drink, and has a large wine-cooler filled,
which he first empties himself, and then fills again and passes on to
Socrates. He is informed of the nature of the entertainment; and is
ready to join, if only in the character of a drunken and disappointed
lover he may be allowed to sing the praises of Socrates:--

He
begins by comparing Socrates first to the busts of Silenus, which have
images of the gods inside them; and, secondly, to Marsyas the
flute-player. For Socrates produces the same effect with the voice
which Marsyas did with the flute. He is the great speaker and enchanter
who ravishes the souls of men; the convincer of hearts too, as he has
convinced Alcibiades, and made him ashamed of his mean and miserable
life. Socrates at one time seemed about to fall in love with him; and
he thought that he would thereby gain a wonderful opportunity of
receiving lessons of wisdom. He narrates the failure of his design. He
has suffered agonies from him, and is at his wit's end. He then
proceeds to mention some other particulars of the life of Socrates; how
they were at Potidaea together, where Socrates showed his superior
powers of enduring cold and fatigue; how on one occasion he had stood
for an entire day and night absorbed in reflection amid the wonder of
the spectators; how on another occasion he had saved Alcibiades' life;
how at the battle of Delium, after the defeat, he might be seen
stalking about like a pelican, rolling his eyes as Aristophanes had
described him in the Clouds. He is the most wonderful of human beings,
and absolutely unlike anyone but a satyr. Like the satyr in his
language too; for he uses the commonest words as the outward mask of
the divinest truths.

When Alcibiades has done speaking, a
dispute begins between him and Agathon and Socrates. Socrates piques
Alcibiades by a pretended affection for Agathon. Presently a band of
revellers appears, who introduce disorder into the feast; the sober
part of the company, Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others, withdraw; and
Aristodemus, the follower of Socrates, sleeps during the whole of a
long winter's night. When he wakes at cockcrow the revellers are nearly
all asleep. Only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon hold out; they are
drinking from a large goblet, which they pass round, and Socrates is
explaining to the two others, who are half-asleep, that the genius of
tragedy is the same as that of comedy, and that the writer of tragedy
ought to be a writer of comedy also. And first Aristophanes drops, and
then, as the day is dawning, Agathon. Socrates, having laid them to
rest, takes a bath and goes to his daily avocations until the evening.
Aristodemus follows.

...

If it be true that there are
more things in the Symposium of Plato than any commentator has dreamed
of, it is also true that many things have been imagined which are not
really to be found there. Some writings hardly admit of a more distinct
interpretation than a musical composition; and every reader may form
his own accompaniment of thought or feeling to the strain which he
hears. The Symposium of Plato is a work of this character, and can with
difficulty be rendered in any words but the writer's own. There are so
many half-lights and cross-lights, so much of the colour of mythology,
and of the manner of sophistry adhering--rhetoric and poetry, the
playful and the serious, are so subtly intermingled in it, and vestiges
of old philosophy so curiously blend with germs of future knowledge,
that agreement among interpreters is not to be expected. The expression
'poema magis putandum quam comicorum poetarum,' which has been applied
to all the writings of Plato, is especially applicable to the Symposium.

The
power of love is represented in the Symposium as running through all
nature and all being: at one end descending to animals and plants, and
attaining to the highest vision of truth at the other. In an age when
man was seeking for an expression of the world around him, the
conception of love greatly affected him. One of the first distinctions
of language and of mythology was that of gender; and at a later period
the ancient physicist, anticipating modern science, saw, or thought
that he saw, a sex in plants; there were elective affinities among the
elements, marriages of earth and heaven. (Aesch. Frag. Dan.) Love
became a mythic personage whom philosophy, borrowing from poetry,
converted into an efficient cause of creation. The traces of the
existence of love, as of number and figure, were everywhere discerned;
and in the Pythagorean list of opposites male and female were ranged
side by side with odd and even, finite and infinite.

But Plato
seems also to be aware that there is a mystery of love in man as well
as in nature, extending beyond the mere immediate relation of the
sexes. He is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the world
are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be
regarded as a spiritualized form of them. We may observe that Socrates
himself is not represented as originally unimpassioned, but as one who
has overcome his passions; the secret of his power over others partly
lies in his passionate but self-controlled nature. In the Phaedrus and
Symposium love is not merely the feeling usually so called, but the
mystical contemplation of the beautiful and the good. The same passion
which may wallow in the mire is capable of rising to the loftiest
heights--of penetrating the inmost secret of philosophy. The highest
love is the love not of a person, but of the highest and purest
abstraction. This abstraction is the far-off heaven on which the eye of
the mind is fixed in fond amazement. The unity of truth, the
consistency of the warring elements of the world, the enthusiasm for
knowledge when first beaming upon mankind, the relativity of ideas to
the human mind, and of the human mind to ideas, the faith in the
invisible, the adoration of the eternal nature, are all included,
consciously or unconsciously, in Plato's doctrine of love.

The
successive speeches in praise of love are characteristic of the
speakers, and contribute in various degrees to the final result; they
are all designed to prepare the way for Socrates, who gathers up the
threads anew, and skims the highest points of each of them. But they
are not to be regarded as the stages of an idea, rising above one
another to a climax. They are fanciful, partly facetious performances,
'yet also having a certain measure of seriousness,' which the
successive speakers dedicate to the god. All of them are rhetorical and
poetical rather than dialectical, but glimpses of truth appear in them.
When Eryximachus says that the principles of music are simple in
themselves, but confused in their application, he touches lightly upon
a difficulty which has troubled the moderns as well as the ancients in
music, and may be extended to the other applied sciences. That
confusion begins in the concrete, was the natural feeling of a mind
dwelling in the world of ideas. When Pausanias remarks that personal
attachments are inimical to despots. The experience of Greek history
confirms the truth of his remark. When Aristophanes declares that love
is the desire of the whole, he expresses a feeling not unlike that of
the German philosopher, who says that 'philosophy is home sickness.'
When Agathon says that no man 'can be wronged of his own free will,' he
is alluding playfully to a serious problem of Greek philosophy (compare
Arist. Nic. Ethics). So naturally does Plato mingle jest and earnest,
truth and opinion in the same work.

The characters--of Phaedrus,
who has been the cause of more philosophical discussions than any other
man, with the exception of Simmias the Theban (Phaedrus); of
Aristophanes, who disguises under comic imagery a serious purpose; of
Agathon, who in later life is satirized by Aristophanes in the
Thesmophoriazusae, for his effeminate manners and the feeble rhythms of
his verse; of Alcibiades, who is the same strange contrast of great
powers and great vices, which meets us in history--are drawn to the
life; and we may suppose the less-known characters of Pausanias and
Eryximachus to be also true to the traditional recollection of them
(compare Phaedr., Protag.; and compare Sympos. with Phaedr.). We may
also remark that Aristodemus is called 'the little' in Xenophon's
Memorabilia (compare Symp.).

The speeches have been said to
follow each other in pairs: Phaedrus and Pausanias being the ethical,
Eryximachus and Aristophanes the physical speakers, while in Agathon
and Socrates poetry and philosophy blend together. The speech of
Phaedrus is also described as the mythological, that of Pausanias as
the political, that of Eryximachus as the scientific, that of
Aristophanes as the artistic (!), that of Socrates as the
philosophical. But these and similar distinctions are not found in
Plato; --they are the points of view of his critics, and seem to impede
rather than to assist us in understanding him.

When the turn of
Socrates comes round he cannot be allowed to disturb the arrangement
made at first. With the leave of Phaedrus he asks a few questions, and
then he throws his argument into the form of a speech (compare Gorg.,
Protag.). But his speech is really the narrative of a dialogue between
himself and Diotima. And as at a banquet good manners would not allow
him to win a victory either over his host or any of the guests, the
superiority which he gains over Agathon is ingeniously represented as
having been already gained over himself by her. The artifice has the
further advantage of maintaining his accustomed profession of ignorance
(compare Menex.). Even his knowledge of the mysteries of love, to which
he lays claim here and elsewhere (Lys.), is given by Diotima.

The
speeches are attested to us by the very best authority. The madman
Apollodorus, who for three years past has made a daily study of the
actions of Socrates--to whom the world is summed up in the words 'Great
is Socrates'--he has heard them from another 'madman,' Aristodemus, who
was the 'shadow' of Socrates in days of old, like him going about
barefooted, and who had been present at the time. 'Would you desire
better witness?' The extraordinary narrative of Alcibiades is
ingeniously represented as admitted by Socrates, whose silence when he
is invited to contradict gives consent to the narrator. We may observe,
by the way, (1) how the very appearance of Aristodemus by himself is a
sufficient indication to Agathon that Socrates has been left behind;
also, (2) how the courtesy of Agathon anticipates the excuse which
Socrates was to have made on Aristodemus' behalf for coming uninvited;
(3) how the story of the fit or trance of Socrates is confirmed by the
mention which Alcibiades makes of a similar fit of abstraction
occurring when he was serving with the army at Potidaea; like (4) the
drinking powers of Socrates and his love of the fair, which receive a
similar attestation in the concluding scene; or the attachment of
Aristodemus, who is not forgotten when Socrates takes his departure.
(5) We may notice the manner in which Socrates himself regards the
first five speeches, not as true, but as fanciful and exaggerated
encomiums of the god Love; (6) the satirical character of them, shown
especially in the appeals to mythology, in the reasons which are given
by Zeus for reconstructing the frame of man, or by the Boeotians and
Eleans for encouraging male loves; (7) the ruling passion of Socrates
for dialectics, who will argue with Agathon instead of making a speech,
and will only speak at all upon the condition that he is allowed to
speak the truth. We may note also the touch of Socratic irony, (8)
which admits of a wide application and reveals a deep insight into the
world:--that in speaking of holy things and persons there is a general
understanding that you should praise them, not that you should speak
the truth about them--this is the sort of praise which Socrates is
unable to give. Lastly, (9) we may remark that the banquet is a real
banquet after all, at which love is the theme of discourse, and huge
quantities of wine are drunk.

The discourse of Phaedrus is
half-mythical, half-ethical; and he himself, true to the character
which is given him in the Dialogue bearing his name, is half-sophist,
half-enthusiast. He is the critic of poetry also, who compares Homer
and Aeschylus in the insipid and irrational manner of the schools of
the day, characteristically reasoning about the probability of matters
which do not admit of reasoning. He starts from a noble text: 'That
without the sense of honour and dishonour neither states nor
individuals ever do any good or great work.' But he soon passes on to
more common-place topics. The antiquity of love, the blessing of having
a lover, the incentive which love offers to daring deeds, the examples
of Alcestis and Achilles, are the chief themes of his discourse. The
love of women is regarded by him as almost on an equality with that of
men; and he makes the singular remark that the gods favour the return
of love which is made by the beloved more than the original sentiment,
because the lover is of a nobler and diviner nature.

There is
something of a sophistical ring in the speech of Phaedrus, which
recalls the first speech in imitation of Lysias, occurring in the
Dialogue called the Phaedrus. This is still more marked in the speech
of Pausanias which follows; and which is at once hyperlogical in form
and also extremely confused and pedantic. Plato is attacking the
logical feebleness of the sophists and rhetoricians, through their
pupils, not forgetting by the way to satirize the monotonous and
unmeaning rhythms which Prodicus and others were introducing into Attic
prose (compare Protag.). Of course, he is 'playing both sides of the
game,' as in the Gorgias and Phaedrus; but it is not necessary in order
to understand him that we should discuss the fairness of his mode of
proceeding. The love of Pausanias for Agathon has already been touched
upon in the Protagoras, and is alluded to by Aristophanes. Hence he is
naturally the upholder of male loves, which, like all the other
affections or actions of men, he regards as varying according to the
manner of their performance. Like the sophists and like Plato himself,
though in a different sense, he begins his discussion by an appeal to
mythology, and distinguishes between the elder and younger love. The
value which he attributes to such loves as motives to virtue and
philosophy is at variance with modern and Christian notions, but is in
accordance with Hellenic sentiment. The opinion of Christendom has not
altogether condemned passionate friendships between persons of the same
sex, but has certainly not encouraged them, because though innocent in
themselves in a few temperaments they are liable to degenerate into
fearful evil. Pausanias is very earnest in the defence of such loves;
and he speaks of them as generally approved among Hellenes and
disapproved by barbarians. His speech is 'more words than matter,' and
might have been composed by a pupil of Lysias or of Prodicus, although
there is no hint given that Plato is specially referring to them. As
Eryximachus says, 'he makes a fair beginning, but a lame ending.'

Plato
transposes the two next speeches, as in the Republic he would transpose
the virtues and the mathematical sciences. This is done partly to avoid
monotony, partly for the sake of making Aristophanes 'the cause of wit
in others,' and also in order to bring the comic and tragic poet into
juxtaposition, as if by accident. A suitable 'expectation' of
Aristophanes is raised by the ludicrous circumstance of his having the
hiccough, which is appropriately cured by his substitute, the physician
Eryximachus. To Eryximachus Love is the good physician; he sees
everything as an intelligent physicist, and, like many professors of
his art in modern times, attempts to reduce the moral to the physical;
or recognises one law of love which pervades them both. There are loves
and strifes of the body as well as of the mind. Like Hippocrates the
Asclepiad, he is a disciple of Heracleitus, whose conception of the
harmony of opposites he explains in a new way as the harmony after
discord; to his common sense, as to that of many moderns as well as
ancients, the identity of contradictories is an absurdity. His notion
of love may be summed up as the harmony of man with himself in soul as
well as body, and of all things in heaven and earth with one another.

Aristophanes
is ready to laugh and make laugh before he opens his mouth, just as
Socrates, true to his character, is ready to argue before he begins to
speak. He expresses the very genius of the old comedy, its coarse and
forcible imagery, and the licence of its language in speaking about the
gods. He has no sophistical notions about love, which is brought back
by him to its common-sense meaning of love between intelligent beings.
His account of the origin of the sexes has the greatest (comic)
probability and verisimilitude. Nothing in Aristophanes is more truly
Aristophanic than the description of the human monster whirling round
on four arms and four legs, eight in all, with incredible rapidity. Yet
there is a mixture of earnestness in this jest; three serious
principles seem to be insinuated:-- first, that man cannot exist in
isolation; he must be reunited if he is to be perfected: secondly, that
love is the mediator and reconciler of poor, divided human nature:
thirdly, that the loves of this world are an indistinct anticipation of
an ideal union which is not yet realized.

The speech of Agathon
is conceived in a higher strain, and receives the real, if
half-ironical, approval of Socrates. It is the speech of the tragic
poet and a sort of poem, like tragedy, moving among the gods of
Olympus, and not among the elder or Orphic deities. In the idea of the
antiquity of love he cannot agree; love is not of the olden time, but
present and youthful ever. The speech may be compared with that speech
of Socrates in the Phaedrus in which he describes himself as talking
dithyrambs. It is at once a preparation for Socrates and a foil to him.
The rhetoric of Agathon elevates the soul to 'sunlit heights,' but at
the same time contrasts with the natural and necessary eloquence of
Socrates. Agathon contributes the distinction between love and the
works of love, and also hints incidentally that love is always of
beauty, which Socrates afterwards raises into a principle. While the
consciousness of discord is stronger in the comic poet Aristophanes,
Agathon, the tragic poet, has a deeper sense of harmony and
reconciliation, and speaks of Love as the creator and artist.

All
the earlier speeches embody common opinions coloured with a tinge of
philosophy. They furnish the material out of which Socrates proceeds to
form his discourse, starting, as in other places, from mythology and
the opinions of men. From Phaedrus he takes the thought that love is
stronger than death; from Pausanias, that the true love is akin to
intellect and political activity; from Eryximachus, that love is a
universal phenomenon and the great power of nature; from Aristophanes,
that love is the child of want, and is not merely the love of the
congenial or of the whole, but (as he adds) of the good; from Agathon,
that love is of beauty, not however of beauty only, but of birth in
beauty. As it would be out of character for Socrates to make a
lengthened harangue, the speech takes the form of a dialogue between
Socrates and a mysterious woman of foreign extraction. She elicits the
final truth from one who knows nothing, and who, speaking by the lips
of another, and himself a despiser of rhetoric, is proved also to be
the most consummate of rhetoricians (compare Menexenus).

The
last of the six discourses begins with a short argument which
overthrows not only Agathon but all the preceding speakers by the help
of a distinction which has escaped them. Extravagant praises have been
ascribed to Love as the author of every good; no sort of encomium was
too high for him, whether deserved and true or not. But Socrates has no
talent for speaking anything but the truth, and if he is to speak the
truth of Love he must honestly confess that he is not a good at all:
for love is of the good, and no man can desire that which he has. This
piece of dialectics is ascribed to Diotima, who has already urged upon
Socrates the argument which he urges against Agathon. That the
distinction is a fallacy is obvious; it is almost acknowledged to be so
by Socrates himself. For he who has beauty or good may desire more of
them; and he who has beauty or good in himself may desire beauty and
good in others. The fallacy seems to arise out of a confusion between
the abstract ideas of good and beauty, which do not admit of degrees,
and their partial realization in individuals.

But Diotima, the
prophetess of Mantineia, whose sacred and superhuman character raises
her above the ordinary proprieties of women, has taught Socrates far
more than this about the art and mystery of love. She has taught him
that love is another aspect of philosophy. The same want in the human
soul which is satisfied in the vulgar by the procreation of children,
may become the highest aspiration of intellectual desire. As the
Christian might speak of hungering and thirsting after righteousness;
or of divine loves under the figure of human (compare Eph. 'This is a
great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church'); as the
mediaeval saint might speak of the 'fruitio Dei;' as Dante saw all
things contained in his love of Beatrice, so Plato would have us absorb
all other loves and desires in the love of knowledge. Here is the
beginning of Neoplatonism, or rather, perhaps, a proof (of which there
are many) that the so-called mysticism of the East was not strange to
the Greek of the fifth century before Christ. The first tumult of the
affections was not wholly subdued; there were longings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

which
no art could satisfy. To most men reason and passion appear to be
antagonistic both in idea and fact. The union of the greatest
comprehension of knowledge and the burning intensity of love is a
contradiction in nature, which may have existed in a far-off primeval
age in the mind of some Hebrew prophet or other Eastern sage, but has
now become an imagination only. Yet this 'passion of the reason' is the
theme of the Symposium of Plato. And as there is no impossibility in
supposing that 'one king, or son of a king, may be a philosopher,' so
also there is a probability that there may be some few--perhaps one or
two in a whole generation--in whom the light of truth may not lack the
warmth of desire. And if there be such natures, no one will be disposed
to deny that 'from them flow most of the benefits of individuals and
states;' and even from imperfect combinations of the two elements in
teachers or statesmen great good may often arise.

Yet there is a
higher region in which love is not only felt, but satisfied, in the
perfect beauty of eternal knowledge, beginning with the beauty of
earthly things, and at last reaching a beauty in which all existence is
seen to be harmonious and one. The limited affection is enlarged, and
enabled to behold the ideal of all things. And here the highest summit
which is reached in the Symposium is seen also to be the highest summit
which is attained in the Republic, but approached from another side;
and there is 'a way upwards and downwards,' which is the same and not
the same in both. The ideal beauty of the one is the ideal good of the
other; regarded not with the eye of knowledge, but of faith and desire;
and they are respectively the source of beauty and the source of good
in all other things. And by the steps of a 'ladder reaching to heaven'
we pass from images of visible beauty (Greek), and from the hypotheses
of the Mathematical sciences, which are not yet based upon the idea of
good, through the concrete to the abstract, and, by different paths
arriving, behold the vision of the eternal (compare Symp. (Greek)
Republic (Greek) also Phaedrus). Under one aspect 'the idea is love';
under another, 'truth.' In both the lover of wisdom is the 'spectator
of all time and of all existence.' This is a 'mystery' in which Plato
also obscurely intimates the union of the spiritual and fleshly, the
interpenetration of the moral and intellectual faculties.

The
divine image of beauty which resides within Socrates has been revealed;
the Silenus, or outward man, has now to be exhibited. The description
of Socrates follows immediately after the speech of Socrates; one is
the complement of the other. At the height of divine inspiration, when
the force of nature can no further go, by way of contrast to this
extreme idealism, Alcibiades, accompanied by a troop of revellers and a
flute-girl, staggers in, and being drunk is able to tell of things
which he would have been ashamed to make known if he had been sober.
The state of his affections towards Socrates, unintelligible to us and
perverted as they appear, affords an illustration of the power ascribed
to the loves of man in the speech of Pausanias. He does not suppose his
feelings to be peculiar to himself: there are several other persons in
the company who have been equally in love with Socrates, and like
himself have been deceived by him. The singular part of this confession
is the combination of the most degrading passion with the desire of
virtue and improvement. Such an union is not wholly untrue to human
nature, which is capable of combining good and evil in a degree beyond
what we can easily conceive. In imaginative persons, especially, the
God and beast in man seem to part asunder more than is natural in a
well-regulated mind. The Platonic Socrates (for of the real Socrates
this may be doubted: compare his public rebuke of Critias for his
shameful love of Euthydemus in Xenophon, Memorabilia) does not regard
the greatest evil of Greek life as a thing not to be spoken of; but it
has a ridiculous element (Plato's Symp.), and is a subject for irony,
no less than for moral reprobation (compare Plato's Symp.). It is also
used as a figure of speech which no one interpreted literally (compare
Xen. Symp.). Nor does Plato feel any repugnance, such as would be felt
in modern times, at bringing his great master and hero into connexion
with nameless crimes. He is contented with representing him as a saint,
who has won 'the Olympian victory' over the temptations of human
nature. The fault of taste, which to us is so glaring and which was
recognized by the Greeks of a later age (Athenaeus), was not perceived
by Plato himself. We are still more surprised to find that the
philosopher is incited to take the first step in his upward progress
(Symp.) by the beauty of young men and boys, which was alone capable of
inspiring the modern feeling of romance in the Greek mind. The passion
of love took the spurious form of an enthusiasm for the ideal of
beauty--a worship as of some godlike image of an Apollo or Antinous.
But the love of youth when not depraved was a love of virtue and
modesty as well as of beauty, the one being the expression of the
other; and in certain Greek states, especially at Sparta and Thebes,
the honourable attachment of a youth to an elder man was a part of his
education. The 'army of lovers and their beloved who would be
invincible if they could be united by such a tie' (Symp.), is not a
mere fiction of Plato's, but seems actually to have existed at Thebes
in the days of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, if we may believe writers
cited anonymously by Plutarch, Pelop. Vit. It is observable that Plato
never in the least degree excuses the depraved love of the body
(compare Charm.; Rep.; Laws; Symp.; and once more Xenophon, Mem.), nor
is there any Greek writer of mark who condones or approves such
connexions. But owing partly to the puzzling nature of the subject
these friendships are spoken of by Plato in a manner different from
that customary among ourselves. To most of them we should hesitate to
ascribe, any more than to the attachment of Achilles and Patroclus in
Homer, an immoral or licentious character. There were many, doubtless,
to whom the love of the fair mind was the noblest form of friendship
(Rep.), and who deemed the friendship of man with man to be higher than
the love of woman, because altogether separated from the bodily
appetites. The existence of such attachments may be reasonably
attributed to the inferiority and seclusion of woman, and the want of a
real family or social life and parental influence in Hellenic cities;
and they were encouraged by the practice of gymnastic exercises, by the
meetings of political clubs, and by the tie of military companionship.
They were also an educational institution: a young person was specially
entrusted by his parents to some elder friend who was expected by them
to train their son in manly exercises and in virtue. It is not likely
that a Greek parent committed him to a lover, any more than we should
to a schoolmaster, in the expectation that he would be corrupted by
him, but rather in the hope that his morals would be better cared for
than was possible in a great household of slaves.

It is
difficult to adduce the authority of Plato either for or against such
practices or customs, because it is not always easy to determine
whether he is speaking of 'the heavenly and philosophical love, or of
the coarse Polyhymnia:' and he often refers to this (e.g. in the
Symposium) half in jest, yet 'with a certain degree of seriousness.' We
observe that they entered into one part of Greek literature, but not
into another, and that the larger part is free from such associations.
Indecency was an element of the ludicrous in the old Greek Comedy, as
it has been in other ages and countries. But effeminate love was always
condemned as well as ridiculed by the Comic poets; and in the New
Comedy the allusions to such topics have disappeared. They seem to have
been no longer tolerated by the greater refinement of the age. False
sentiment is found in the Lyric and Elegiac poets; and in mythology
'the greatest of the Gods' (Rep.) is not exempt from evil imputations.
But the morals of a nation are not to be judged of wholly by its
literature. Hellas was not necessarily more corrupted in the days of
the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, or of Plato and the Orators, than
England in the time of Fielding and Smollett, or France in the
nineteenth century. No one supposes certain French novels to be a
representation of ordinary French life. And the greater part of Greek
literature, beginning with Homer and including the tragedians,
philosophers, and, with the exception of the Comic poets (whose
business was to raise a laugh by whatever means), all the greater
writers of Hellas who have been preserved to us, are free from the
taint of indecency.

Some general considerations occur to our
mind when we begin to reflect on this subject. (1) That good and evil
are linked together in human nature, and have often existed side by
side in the world and in man to an extent hardly credible. We cannot
distinguish them, and are therefore unable to part them; as in the
parable 'they grow together unto the harvest:' it is only a rule of
external decency by which society can divide them. Nor should we be
right in inferring from the prevalence of any one vice or corruption
that a state or individual was demoralized in their whole character.
Not only has the corruption of the best been sometimes thought to be
the worst, but it may be remarked that this very excess of evil has
been the stimulus to good (compare Plato, Laws, where he says that in
the most corrupt cities individuals are to be found beyond all praise).
(2) It may be observed that evils which admit of degrees can seldom be
rightly estimated, because under the same name actions of the most
different degrees of culpability may be included. No charge is more
easily set going than the imputation of secret wickedness (which cannot
be either proved or disproved and often cannot be defined) when
directed against a person of whom the world, or a section of it, is
predisposed to think evil. And it is quite possible that the malignity
of Greek scandal, aroused by some personal jealousy or party enmity,
may have converted the innocent friendship of a great man for a noble
youth into a connexion of another kind. Such accusations were brought
against several of the leading men of Hellas, e.g. Cimon, Alcibiades,
Critias, Demosthenes, Epaminondas: several of the Roman emperors were
assailed by similar weapons which have been used even in our own day
against statesmen of the highest character. (3) While we know that in
this matter there is a great gulf fixed between Greek and Christian
Ethics, yet, if we would do justice to the Greeks, we must also
acknowledge that there was a greater outspokenness among them than
among ourselves about the things which nature hides, and that the more
frequent mention of such topics is not to be taken as the measure of
the prevalence of offences, or as a proof of the general corruption of
society. It is likely that every religion in the world has used words
or practised rites in one age, which have become distasteful or
repugnant to another. We cannot, though for different reasons, trust
the representations either of Comedy or Satire; and still less of
Christian Apologists. (4) We observe that at Thebes and Lacedemon the
attachment of an elder friend to a beloved youth was often deemed to be
a part of his education; and was encouraged by his parents--it was only
shameful if it degenerated into licentiousness. Such we may believe to
have been the tie which united Asophychus and Cephisodorus with the
great Epaminondas in whose companionship they fell (Plutarch, Amat.;
Athenaeus on the authority of Theopompus). (5) A small matter: there
appears to be a difference of custom among the Greeks and among
ourselves, as between ourselves and continental nations at the present
time, in modes of salutation. We must not suspect evil in the hearty
kiss or embrace of a male friend 'returning from the army at Potidaea'
any more than in a similar salutation when practised by members of the
same family. But those who make these admissions, and who regard, not
without pity, the victims of such illusions in our own day, whose life
has been blasted by them, may be none the less resolved that the
natural and healthy instincts of mankind shall alone be tolerated
(Greek); and that the lesson of manliness which we have inherited from
our fathers shall not degenerate into sentimentalism or effeminacy. The
possibility of an honourable connexion of this kind seems to have died
out with Greek civilization. Among the Romans, and also among
barbarians, such as the Celts and Persians, there is no trace of such
attachments existing in any noble or virtuous form.

The
character of Alcibiades in the Symposium is hardly less remarkable than
that of Socrates, and agrees with the picture given of him in the first
of the two Dialogues which are called by his name, and also with the
slight sketch of him in the Protagoras. He is the impersonation of
lawlessness-- 'the lion's whelp, who ought not to be reared in the
city,' yet not without a certain generosity which gained the hearts of
men,--strangely fascinated by Socrates, and possessed of a genius which
might have been either the destruction or salvation of Athens. The
dramatic interest of the character is heightened by the recollection of
his after history. He seems to have been present to the mind of Plato
in the description of the democratic man of the Republic (compare also
Alcibiades 1).

There is no criterion of the date of the
Symposium, except that which is furnished by the allusion to the
division of Arcadia after the destruction of Mantinea. This took place
in the year B.C. 384, which is the forty- fourth year of Plato's life.
The Symposium cannot therefore be regarded as a youthful work. As
Mantinea was restored in the year 369, the composition of the Dialogue
will probably fall between 384 and 369. Whether the recollection of the
event is more likely to have been renewed at the destruction or
restoration of the city, rather than at some intermediate period, is a
consideration not worth raising.

The Symposium is connected with
the Phaedrus both in style and subject; they are the only Dialogues of
Plato in which the theme of love is discussed at length. In both of
them philosophy is regarded as a sort of enthusiasm or madness;
Socrates is himself 'a prophet new inspired' with Bacchanalian revelry,
which, like his philosophy, he characteristically pretends to have
derived not from himself but from others. The Phaedo also presents some
points of comparison with the Symposium. For there, too, philosophy
might be described as 'dying for love;' and there are not wanting many
touches of humour and fancy, which remind us of the Symposium. But
while the Phaedo and Phaedrus look backwards and forwards to past and
future states of existence, in the Symposium there is no break between
this world and another; and we rise from one to the other by a regular
series of steps or stages, proceeding from the particulars of sense to
the universal of reason, and from one universal to many, which are
finally reunited in a single science (compare Rep.). At first
immortality means only the succession of existences; even knowledge
comes and goes. Then follows, in the language of the mysteries, a
higher and a higher degree of initiation; at last we arrive at the
perfect vision of beauty, not relative or changing, but eternal and
absolute; not bounded by this world, or in or out of this world, but an
aspect of the divine, extending over all things, and having no limit of
space or time: this is the highest knowledge of which the human mind is
capable. Plato does not go on to ask whether the individual is absorbed
in the sea of light and beauty or retains his personality. Enough for
him to have attained the true beauty or good, without enquiring
precisely into the relation in which human beings stood to it. That the
soul has such a reach of thought, and is capable of partaking of the
eternal nature, seems to imply that she too is eternal (compare
Phaedrus). But Plato does not distinguish the eternal in man from the
eternal in the world or in God. He is willing to rest in the
contemplation of the idea, which to him is the cause of all things
(Rep.), and has no strength to go further.

The Symposium of
Xenophon, in which Socrates describes himself as a pander, and also
discourses of the difference between sensual and sentimental love,
likewise offers several interesting points of comparison. But the
suspicion which hangs over other writings of Xenophon, and the numerous
minute references to the Phaedrus and Symposium, as well as to some of
the other writings of Plato, throw a doubt on the genuineness of the
work. The Symposium of Xenophon, if written by him at all, would
certainly show that he wrote against Plato, and was acquainted with his
works. Of this hostility there is no trace in the Memorabilia. Such a
rivalry is more characteristic of an imitator than of an original
writer. The (so-called) Symposium of Xenophon may therefore have no
more title to be regarded as genuine than the confessedly spurious
Apology.

There are no means of determining the relative order in
time of the Phaedrus, Symposium, Phaedo. The order which has been
adopted in this translation rests on no other principle than the desire
to bring together in a series the memorials of the life of Socrates.

SYMPOSIUM

by Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

PERSONS
OF THE DIALOGUE: Apollodorus, who repeats to his companion the dialogue
which he had heard from Aristodemus, and had already once narrated to
Glaucon. Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon,
Socrates, Alcibiades, A Troop of Revellers.

SCENE: The House of Agathon.

Concerning
the things about which you ask to be informed I believe that I am not
ill-prepared with an answer. For the day before yesterday I was coming
from my own home at Phalerum to the city, and one of my acquaintance,
who had caught a sight of me from behind, calling out playfully in the
distance, said: Apollodorus, O thou Phalerian (Probably a play of words
on (Greek), 'bald-headed.') man, halt! So I did as I was bid; and then
he said, I was looking for you, Apollodorus, only just now, that I
might ask you about the speeches in praise of love, which were
delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon's supper.
Phoenix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me of them;
his narrative was very indistinct, but he said that you knew, and I
wish that you would give me an account of them. Who, if not you, should
be the reporter of the words of your friend? And first tell me, he
said, were you present at this meeting?

Your informant, Glaucon,
I said, must have been very indistinct indeed, if you imagine that the
occasion was recent; or that I could have been of the party.

Why, yes, he replied, I thought so.

Impossible:
I said. Are you ignorant that for many years Agathon has not resided at
Athens; and not three have elapsed since I became acquainted with
Socrates, and have made it my daily business to know all that he says
and does. There was a time when I was running about the world, fancying
myself to be well employed, but I was really a most wretched being, no
better than you are now. I thought that I ought to do anything rather
than be a philosopher.

Well, he said, jesting apart, tell me when the meeting occurred.

In
our boyhood, I replied, when Agathon won the prize with his first
tragedy, on the day after that on which he and his chorus offered the
sacrifice of victory.

Then it must have been a long while ago, he said; and who told you--did
Socrates?

No
indeed, I replied, but the same person who told Phoenix;--he was a
little fellow, who never wore any shoes, Aristodemus, of the deme of
Cydathenaeum. He had been at Agathon's feast; and I think that in those
days there was no one who was a more devoted admirer of Socrates.
Moreover, I have asked Socrates about the truth of some parts of his
narrative, and he confirmed them. Then, said Glaucon, let us have the
tale over again; is not the road to Athens just made for conversation?
And so we walked, and talked of the discourses on love; and therefore,
as I said at first, I am not ill-prepared to comply with your request,
and will have another rehearsal of them if you like. For to speak or to
hear others speak of philosophy always gives me the greatest pleasure,
to say nothing of the profit. But when I hear another strain,
especially that of you rich men and traders, such conversation
displeases me; and I pity you who are my companions, because you think
that you are doing something when in reality you are doing nothing. And
I dare say that you pity me in return, whom you regard as an unhappy
creature, and very probably you are right. But I certainly know of you
what you only think of me--there is the difference.

COMPANION: I
see, Apollodorus, that you are just the same--always speaking evil of
yourself, and of others; and I do believe that you pity all mankind,
with the exception of Socrates, yourself first of all, true in this to
your old name, which, however deserved, I know not how you acquired, of
Apollodorus the madman; for you are always raging against yourself and
everybody but Socrates.

APOLLODORUS: Yes, friend, and the reason
why I am said to be mad, and out of my wits, is just because I have
these notions of myself and you; no other evidence is required.

COMPANION: No more of that, Apollodorus; but let me renew my request
that you would repeat the conversation.

APOLLODORUS:
Well, the tale of love was on this wise:--But perhaps I had better
begin at the beginning, and endeavour to give you the exact words of
Aristodemus:

He said that he met Socrates fresh from the bath
and sandalled; and as the sight of the sandals was unusual, he asked
him whither he was going that he had been converted into such a beau:--

To
a banquet at Agathon's, he replied, whose invitation to his sacrifice
of victory I refused yesterday, fearing a crowd, but promising that I
would come to-day instead; and so I have put on my finery, because he
is such a fine man. What say you to going with me unasked?

I will do as you bid me, I replied.

Follow then, he said, and let us demolish the proverb:--

'To the feasts of inferior men the good unbidden go;'

instead of which our proverb will run:--

'To the feasts of the good the good unbidden go;'

and
this alteration may be supported by the authority of Homer himself, who
not only demolishes but literally outrages the proverb. For, after
picturing Agamemnon as the most valiant of men, he makes Menelaus, who
is but a fainthearted warrior, come unbidden (Iliad) to the banquet of
Agamemnon, who is feasting and offering sacrifices, not the better to
the worse, but the worse to the better.

I rather fear, Socrates,
said Aristodemus, lest this may still be my case; and that, like
Menelaus in Homer, I shall be the inferior person, who

'To the feasts of the wise unbidden goes.'

But I shall say that I was bidden of you, and then you will have to
make an excuse.

'Two going together,'

he replied, in Homeric fashion, one or other of them may invent an
excuse by the way (Iliad).

This
was the style of their conversation as they went along. Socrates
dropped behind in a fit of abstraction, and desired Aristodemus, who
was waiting, to go on before him. When he reached the house of Agathon
he found the doors wide open, and a comical thing happened. A servant
coming out met him, and led him at once into the banqueting-hall in
which the guests were reclining, for the banquet was about to begin.
Welcome, Aristodemus, said Agathon, as soon as he appeared--you are
just in time to sup with us; if you come on any other matter put it
off, and make one of us, as I was looking for you yesterday and meant
to have asked you, if I could have found you. But what have you done
with Socrates?

I turned round, but Socrates was nowhere to be
seen; and I had to explain that he had been with me a moment before,
and that I came by his invitation to the supper.

You were quite right in coming, said Agathon; but where is he himself?

He was behind me just now, as I entered, he said, and I cannot think
what has become of him.

Go and look for him, boy, said Agathon, and bring him in; and do you,
Aristodemus, meanwhile take the place by Eryximachus.

The
servant then assisted him to wash, and he lay down, and presently
another servant came in and reported that our friend Socrates had
retired into the portico of the neighbouring house. 'There he is
fixed,' said he, 'and when I call to him he will not stir.'

How strange, said Agathon; then you must call him again, and keep
calling him.

Let
him alone, said my informant; he has a way of stopping anywhere and
losing himself without any reason. I believe that he will soon appear;
do not therefore disturb him.

Well, if you think so, I will
leave him, said Agathon. And then, turning to the servants, he added,
'Let us have supper without waiting for him. Serve up whatever you
please, for there is no one to give you orders; hitherto I have never
left you to yourselves. But on this occasion imagine that you are our
hosts, and that I and the company are your guests; treat us well, and
then we shall commend you.' After this, supper was served, but still no
Socrates; and during the meal Agathon several times expressed a wish to
send for him, but Aristodemus objected; and at last when the feast was
about half over--for the fit, as usual, was not of long duration
--Socrates entered. Agathon, who was reclining alone at the end of the
table, begged that he would take the place next to him; that 'I may
touch you,' he said, 'and have the benefit of that wise thought which
came into your mind in the portico, and is now in your possession; for
I am certain that you would not have come away until you had found what
you sought.'

How I wish, said Socrates, taking his place as he
was desired, that wisdom could be infused by touch, out of the fuller
into the emptier man, as water runs through wool out of a fuller cup
into an emptier one; if that were so, how greatly should I value the
privilege of reclining at your side! For you would have filled me full
with a stream of wisdom plenteous and fair; whereas my own is of a very
mean and questionable sort, no better than a dream. But yours is bright
and full of promise, and was manifested forth in all the splendour of
youth the day before yesterday, in the presence of more than thirty
thousand Hellenes.

You are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and
ere long you and I will have to determine who bears off the palm of
wisdom--of this Dionysus shall be the judge; but at present you are
better occupied with supper.

Socrates took his place on the
couch, and supped with the rest; and then libations were offered, and
after a hymn had been sung to the god, and there had been the usual
ceremonies, they were about to commence drinking, when Pausanias said,
And now, my friends, how can we drink with least injury to ourselves? I
can assure you that I feel severely the effect of yesterday's
potations, and must have time to recover; and I suspect that most of
you are in the same predicament, for you were of the party yesterday.
Consider then: How can the drinking be made easiest?

I entirely
agree, said Aristophanes, that we should, by all means, avoid hard
drinking, for I was myself one of those who were yesterday drowned in
drink.

I think that you are right, said Eryximachus, the son of
Acumenus; but I should still like to hear one other person speak: Is
Agathon able to drink hard?

I am not equal to it, said Agathon.

Then,
said Eryximachus, the weak heads like myself, Aristodemus, Phaedrus,
and others who never can drink, are fortunate in finding that the
stronger ones are not in a drinking mood. (I do not include Socrates,
who is able either to drink or to abstain, and will not mind, whichever
we do.) Well, as of none of the company seem disposed to drink much, I
may be forgiven for saying, as a physician, that drinking deep is a bad
practice, which I never follow, if I can help, and certainly do not
recommend to another, least of all to any one who still feels the
effects of yesterday's carouse.

I always do what you advise, and
especially what you prescribe as a physician, rejoined Phaedrus the
Myrrhinusian, and the rest of the company, if they are wise, will do
the same.

It was agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day, but
that they were all to drink only so much as they pleased.

Then,
said Eryximachus, as you are all agreed that drinking is to be
voluntary, and that there is to be no compulsion, I move, in the next
place, that the flute-girl, who has just made her appearance, be told
to go away and play to herself, or, if she likes, to the women who are
within (compare Prot.). To-day let us have conversation instead; and,
if you will allow me, I will tell you what sort of conversation. This
proposal having been accepted, Eryximachus proceeded as follows:--

I will begin, he said, after the manner of Melanippe in Euripides,

'Not mine the word'

which
I am about to speak, but that of Phaedrus. For often he says to me in
an indignant tone:--'What a strange thing it is, Eryximachus, that,
whereas other gods have poems and hymns made in their honour, the great
and glorious god, Love, has no encomiast among all the poets who are so
many. There are the worthy sophists too--the excellent Prodicus for
example, who have descanted in prose on the virtues of Heracles and
other heroes; and, what is still more extraordinary, I have met with a
philosophical work in which the utility of salt has been made the theme
of an eloquent discourse; and many other like things have had a like
honour bestowed upon them. And only to think that there should have
been an eager interest created about them, and yet that to this day no
one has ever dared worthily to hymn Love's praises! So entirely has
this great deity been neglected.' Now in this Phaedrus seems to me to
be quite right, and therefore I want to offer him a contribution; also
I think that at the present moment we who are here assembled cannot do
better than honour the god Love. If you agree with me, there will be no
lack of conversation; for I mean to propose that each of us in turn,
going from left to right, shall make a speech in honour of Love. Let
him give us the best which he can; and Phaedrus, because he is sitting
first on the left hand, and because he is the father of the thought,
shall begin.

No one will vote against you, Eryximachus, said
Socrates. How can I oppose your motion, who profess to understand
nothing but matters of love; nor, I presume, will Agathon and
Pausanias; and there can be no doubt of Aristophanes, whose whole
concern is with Dionysus and Aphrodite; nor will any one disagree of
those whom I see around me. The proposal, as I am aware, may seem
rather hard upon us whose place is last; but we shall be contented if
we hear some good speeches first. Let Phaedrus begin the praise of
Love, and good luck to him. All the company expressed their assent, and
desired him to do as Socrates bade him.

Aristodemus did not
recollect all that was said, nor do I recollect all that he related to
me; but I will tell you what I thought most worthy of remembrance, and
what the chief speakers said.

Phaedrus began by affirming that
Love is a mighty god, and wonderful among gods and men, but especially
wonderful in his birth. For he is the eldest of the gods, which is an
honour to him; and a proof of his claim to this honour is, that of his
parents there is no memorial; neither poet nor prose-writer has ever
affirmed that he had any. As Hesiod says:--

'First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth, The everlasting seat
of all that is, And Love.'

In other words, after Chaos, the Earth and Love, these two, came into
being. Also Parmenides sings of Generation:

'First in the train of gods, he fashioned Love.'

And
Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod. Thus numerous are the witnesses who
acknowledge Love to be the eldest of the gods. And not only is he the
eldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us. For I
know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than
a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the
principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live--that
principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any
other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking?
Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor
individuals ever do any good or great work. And I say that a lover who
is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or submitting through
cowardice when any dishonour is done to him by another, will be more
pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by his
father, or by his companions, or by any one else. The beloved too, when
he is found in any disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about
his lover. And if there were only some way of contriving that a state
or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves (compare Rep.),
they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining
from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when
fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would
overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen
by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or
throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths
rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in
the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero,
equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. That
courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the souls of some
heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover.

Love will
make men dare to die for their beloved--love alone; and women as well
as men. Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, is a monument to all
Hellas; for she was willing to lay down her life on behalf of her
husband, when no one else would, although he had a father and mother;
but the tenderness of her love so far exceeded theirs, that she made
them seem to be strangers in blood to their own son, and in name only
related to him; and so noble did this action of hers appear to the
gods, as well as to men, that among the many who have done virtuously
she is one of the very few to whom, in admiration of her noble action,
they have granted the privilege of returning alive to earth; such
exceeding honour is paid by the gods to the devotion and virtue of
love. But Orpheus, the son of Oeagrus, the harper, they sent empty
away, and presented to him an apparition only of her whom he sought,
but herself they would not give up, because he showed no spirit; he was
only a harp-player, and did not dare like Alcestis to die for love, but
was contriving how he might enter Hades alive; moreover, they
afterwards caused him to suffer death at the hands of women, as the
punishment of his cowardliness. Very different was the reward of the
true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus--his lover and not
his love (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish
error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the
fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer
informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far). And greatly as
the gods honour the virtue of love, still the return of love on the
part of the beloved to the lover is more admired and valued and
rewarded by them, for the lover is more divine; because he is inspired
by God. Now Achilles was quite aware, for he had been told by his
mother, that he might avoid death and return home, and live to a good
old age, if he abstained from slaying Hector. Nevertheless he gave his
life to revenge his friend, and dared to die, not only in his defence,
but after he was dead. Wherefore the gods honoured him even above
Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of the Blest. These are my
reasons for affirming that Love is the eldest and noblest and mightiest
of the gods; and the chiefest author and giver of virtue in life, and
of happiness after death.

This, or something like this, was the
speech of Phaedrus; and some other speeches followed which Aristodemus
did not remember; the next which he repeated was that of Pausanias.
Phaedrus, he said, the argument has not been set before us, I think,
quite in the right form;--we should not be called upon to praise Love
in such an indiscriminate manner. If there were only one Love, then
what you said would be well enough; but since there are more Loves than
one,--should have begun by determining which of them was to be the
theme of our praises. I will amend this defect; and first of all I will
tell you which Love is deserving of praise, and then try to hymn the
praiseworthy one in a manner worthy of him. For we all know that Love
is inseparable from Aphrodite, and if there were only one Aphrodite
there would be only one Love; but as there are two goddesses there must
be two Loves. And am I not right in asserting that there are two
goddesses? The elder one, having no mother, who is called the heavenly
Aphrodite--she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the
daughter of Zeus and Dione --her we call common; and the Love who is
her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is called
heavenly. All the gods ought to have praise given to them, but not
without distinction of their natures; and therefore I must try to
distinguish the characters of the two Loves. Now actions vary according
to the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we
are now doing, drinking, singing and talking--these actions are not in
themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way
according to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are
good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every
love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of
praise. The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is
essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner
sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and
is of the body rather than of the soul--the most foolish beings are the
objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never
thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil
quite indiscriminately. The goddess who is his mother is far younger
than the other, and she was born of the union of the male and female,
and partakes of both. But the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is
derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part,--she is
from the male only; this is that love which is of youths, and the
goddess being older, there is nothing of wantonness in her. Those who
are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is
the more valiant and intelligent nature; any one may recognise the pure
enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments. For they love
not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be
developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. And
in choosing young men to be their companions, they mean to be faithful
to them, and pass their whole life in company with them, not to take
them in their inexperience, and deceive them, and play the fool with
them, or run away from one to another of them. But the love of young
boys should be forbidden by law, because their future is uncertain;
they may turn out good or bad, either in body or soul, and much noble
enthusiasm may be thrown away upon them; in this matter the good are a
law to themselves, and the coarser sort of lovers ought to be
restrained by force; as we restrain or attempt to restrain them from
fixing their affections on women of free birth. These are the persons
who bring a reproach on love; and some have been led to deny the
lawfulness of such attachments because they see the impropriety and
evil of them; for surely nothing that is decorously and lawfully done
can justly be censured. Now here and in Lacedaemon the rules about love
are perplexing, but in most cities they are simple and easily
intelligible; in Elis and Boeotia, and in countries having no gifts of
eloquence, they are very straightforward; the law is simply in favour
of these connexions, and no one, whether young or old, has anything to
say to their discredit; the reason being, as I suppose, that they are
men of few words in those parts, and therefore the lovers do not like
the trouble of pleading their suit. In Ionia and other places, and
generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom
is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in
which philosophy and gymnastics are held, because they are inimical to
tyranny; for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should
be poor in spirit (compare Arist. Politics), and that there should be
no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above
all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants
learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy
of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power. And, therefore,
the ill-repute into which these attachments have fallen is to be
ascribed to the evil condition of those who make them to be
ill-reputed; that is to say, to the self- seeking of the governors and
the cowardice of the governed; on the other hand, the indiscriminate
honour which is given to them in some countries is attributable to the
laziness of those who hold this opinion of them. In our own country a
far better principle prevails, but, as I was saying, the explanation of
it is rather perplexing. For, observe that open loves are held to be
more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and
highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is
especially honourable. Consider, too, how great is the encouragement
which all the world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be
doing anything dishonourable; but if he succeeds he is praised, and if
he fail he is blamed. And in the pursuit of his love the custom of
mankind allows him to do many strange things, which philosophy would
bitterly censure if they were done from any motive of interest, or wish
for office or power. He may pray, and entreat, and supplicate, and
swear, and lie on a mat at the door, and endure a slavery worse than
that of any slave--in any other case friends and enemies would be
equally ready to prevent him, but now there is no friend who will be
ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy will charge him with
meanness or flattery; the actions of a lover have a grace which
ennobles them; and custom has decided that they are highly commendable
and that there no loss of character in them; and, what is strangest of
all, he only may swear and forswear himself (so men say), and the gods
will forgive his transgression, for there is no such thing as a lover's
oath. Such is the entire liberty which gods and men have allowed the
lover, according to the custom which prevails in our part of the world.
From this point of view a man fairly argues that in Athens to love and
to be loved is held to be a very honourable thing. But when parents
forbid their sons to talk with their lovers, and place them under a
tutor's care, who is appointed to see to these things, and their
companions and equals cast in their teeth anything of the sort which
they may observe, and their elders refuse to silence the reprovers and
do not rebuke them--any one who reflects on all this will, on the
contrary, think that we hold these practices to be most disgraceful.
But, as I was saying at first, the truth as I imagine is, that whether
such practices are honourable or whether they are dishonourable is not
a simple question; they are honourable to him who follows them
honourably, dishonourable to him who follows them dishonourably. There
is dishonour in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there
is honour in yielding to the good, or in an honourable manner. Evil is
the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as
he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself
unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring
is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and
promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for
it becomes one with the everlasting. The custom of our country would
have both of them proven well and truly, and would have us yield to the
one sort of lover and avoid the other, and therefore encourages some to
pursue, and others to fly; testing both the lover and beloved in
contests and trials, until they show to which of the two classes they
respectively belong. And this is the reason why, in the first place, a
hasty attachment is held to be dishonourable, because time is the true
test of this as of most other things; and secondly there is a dishonour
in being overcome by the love of money, or of wealth, or of political
power, whether a man is frightened into surrender by the loss of them,
or, having experienced the benefits of money and political corruption,
is unable to rise above the seductions of them. For none of these
things are of a permanent or lasting nature; not to mention that no
generous friendship ever sprang from them. There remains, then, only
one way of honourable attachment which custom allows in the beloved,
and this is the way of virtue; for as we admitted that any service
which the lover does to him is not to be accounted flattery or a
dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one way only of voluntary
service which is not dishonourable, and this is virtuous service.

For
we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does service
to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in
wisdom, or in some other particular of virtue--such a voluntary
service, I say, is not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open
to the charge of flattery. And these two customs, one the love of
youth, and the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general,
ought to meet in one, and then the beloved may honourably indulge the
lover. For when the lover and beloved come together, having each of
them a law, and the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service
which he can to his gracious loving one; and the other that he is right
in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and
good; the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other
seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom, when the
two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in one--then, and then only,
may the beloved yield with honour to the lover. Nor when love is of
this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in
every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being
deceived. For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that
he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be
poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that
he would give himself up to any one's 'uses base' for the sake of
money; but this is not honourable. And on the same principle he who
gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that
he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even
though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to
have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error.
For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody
with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing
nobler. Thus noble in every case is the acceptance of another for the
sake of virtue. This is that love which is the love of the heavenly
godess, and is heavenly, and of great price to individuals and cities,
making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own
improvement. But all other loves are the offspring of the other, who is
the common goddess. To you, Phaedrus, I offer this my contribution in
praise of love, which is as good as I could make extempore.

Pausanias
came to a pause--this is the balanced way in which I have been taught
by the wise to speak; and Aristodemus said that the turn of
Aristophanes was next, but either he had eaten too much, or from some
other cause he had the hiccough, and was obliged to change turns with
Eryximachus the physician, who was reclining on the couch below him.
Eryximachus, he said, you ought either to stop my hiccough, or to speak
in my turn until I have left off.

I will do both, said
Eryximachus: I will speak in your turn, and do you speak in mine; and
while I am speaking let me recommend you to hold your breath, and if
after you have done so for some time the hiccough is no better, then
gargle with a little water; and if it still continues, tickle your nose
with something and sneeze; and if you sneeze once or twice, even the
most violent hiccough is sure to go. I will do as you prescribe, said
Aristophanes, and now get on.

Eryximachus spoke as follows:
Seeing that Pausanias made a fair beginning, and but a lame ending, I
must endeavour to supply his deficiency. I think that he has rightly
distinguished two kinds of love. But my art further informs me that the
double love is not merely an affection of the soul of man towards the
fair, or towards anything, but is to be found in the bodies of all
animals and in productions of the earth, and I may say in all that is;
such is the conclusion which I seem to have gathered from my own art of
medicine, whence I learn how great and wonderful and universal is the
deity of love, whose empire extends over all things, divine as well as
human. And from medicine I will begin that I may do honour to my art.
There are in the human body these two kinds of love, which are
confessedly different and unlike, and being unlike, they have loves and
desires which are unlike; and the desire of the healthy is one, and the
desire of the diseased is another; and as Pausanias was just now saying
that to indulge good men is honourable, and bad men dishonourable:--so
too in the body the good and healthy elements are to be indulged, and
the bad elements and the elements of disease are not to be indulged,
but discouraged. And this is what the physician has to do, and in this
the art of medicine consists: for medicine may be regarded generally as
the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body, and how to satisfy
them or not; and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair
love from foul, or to convert one into the other; and he who knows how
to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can
reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them
loving friends, is a skilful practitioner. Now the most hostile are the
most opposite, such as hot and cold, bitter and sweet, moist and dry,
and the like. And my ancestor, Asclepius, knowing how to implant
friendship and accord in these elements, was the creator of our art, as
our friends the poets here tell us, and I believe them; and not only
medicine in every branch but the arts of gymnastic and husbandry are
under his dominion. Any one who pays the least attention to the subject
will also perceive that in music there is the same reconciliation of
opposites; and I suppose that this must have been the meaning of
Heracleitus, although his words are not accurate; for he says that The
One is united by disunion, like the harmony of the bow and the lyre.
Now there is an absurdity saying that harmony is discord or is composed
of elements which are still in a state of discord. But what he probably
meant was, that harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or
lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of
music; for if the higher and lower notes still disagreed, there could
be no harmony,--clearly not. For harmony is a symphony, and symphony is
an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree
there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees. In like
manner rhythm is compounded of elements short and long, once differing
and now in accord; which accordance, as in the former instance,
medicine, so in all these other cases, music implants, making love and
unison to grow up among them; and thus music, too, is concerned with
the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm.
Again, in the essential nature of harmony and rhythm there is no
difficulty in discerning love which has not yet become double. But when
you want to use them in actual life, either in the composition of songs
or in the correct performance of airs or metres composed already, which
latter is called education, then the difficulty begins, and the good
artist is needed. Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair and
heavenly love--the love of Urania the fair and heavenly muse, and of
the duty of accepting the temperate, and those who are as yet
intemperate only that they may become temperate, and of preserving
their love; and again, of the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be used with
circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed, but may not generate
licentiousness; just as in my own art it is a great matter so to
regulate the desires of the epicure that he may gratify his tastes
without the attendant evil of disease. Whence I infer that in music, in
medicine, in all other things human as well as divine, both loves ought
to be noted as far as may be, for they are both present.

The
course of the seasons is also full of both these principles; and when,
as I was saying, the elements of hot and cold, moist and dry, attain
the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance and harmony,
they bring to men, animals, and plants health and plenty, and do them
no harm; whereas the wanton love, getting the upper hand and affecting
the seasons of the year, is very destructive and injurious, being the
source of pestilence, and bringing many other kinds of diseases on
animals and plants; for hoar-frost and hail and blight spring from the
excesses and disorders of these elements of love, which to know in
relation to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and the seasons of
the year is termed astronomy. Furthermore all sacrifices and the whole
province of divination, which is the art of communion between gods and
men--these, I say, are concerned only with the preservation of the good
and the cure of the evil love. For all manner of impiety is likely to
ensue if, instead of accepting and honouring and reverencing the
harmonious love in all his actions, a man honours the other love,
whether in his feelings towards gods or parents, towards the living or
the dead. Wherefore the business of divination is to see to these loves
and to heal them, and divination is the peacemaker of gods and men,
working by a knowledge of the religious or irreligious tendencies which
exist in human loves. Such is the great and mighty, or rather
omnipotent force of love in general. And the love, more especially,
which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company
with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the
greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and
makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another.
I dare say that I too have omitted several things which might be said
in praise of Love, but this was not intentional, and you, Aristophanes,
may now supply the omission or take some other line of commendation;
for I perceive that you are rid of the hiccough.

Yes, said
Aristophanes, who followed, the hiccough is gone; not, however, until I
applied the sneezing; and I wonder whether the harmony of the body has
a love of such noises and ticklings, for I no sooner applied the
sneezing than I was cured.

Eryximachus said: Beware, friend
Aristophanes, although you are going to speak, you are making fun of
me; and I shall have to watch and see whether I cannot have a laugh at
your expense, when you might speak in peace.

You are right, said
Aristophanes, laughing. I will unsay my words; but do you please not to
watch me, as I fear that in the speech which I am about to make,
instead of others laughing with me, which is to the manner born of our
muse and would be all the better, I shall only be laughed at by them.

Do
you expect to shoot your bolt and escape, Aristophanes? Well, perhaps
if you are very careful and bear in mind that you will be called to
account, I may be induced to let you off.

Aristophanes professed
to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in
another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind,
he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at
all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they
would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn
sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly
ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men,
the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to
the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and
you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you. In the
first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to
it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but
different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three
in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a
name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real
existence, but is now lost, and the word 'Androgynous' is only
preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man
was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands
and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a
round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and
the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do,
backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and
over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in
all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this
was when he wanted to run fast. Now the sexes were three, and such as I
have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and
the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth,
and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and
they were all round and moved round and round like their parents.
Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts
were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the
tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven,
and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial
councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with
thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end
of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the
other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be
unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered
a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride
and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut
them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased
in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable
to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue
insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall
hop about on a single leg.' He spoke and cut men in two, like a
sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg
with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give
the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might
contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of
humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their
forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides
all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the
purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he
fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also
moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a
shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in
the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state.
After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half,
came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in
mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of
dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do
anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived,
the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them,--being
the sections of entire men or women,--and clung to that. They were
being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he
turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not
been always their position, and they sowed the seed no longer as
hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after
the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the
mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might
continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and
go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one
another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making
one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated,
having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man,
and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of
that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of
women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous
women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do
not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions
are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the
male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they
hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of
boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed
assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not
act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and
manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is
like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these
only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saving. When
they reach manhood they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally
inclined to marry or beget children,--if at all, they do so only in
obedience to the law; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to
live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and
ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And
when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself,
whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are
lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will
not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these
are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not
explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which
each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of
lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either
evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and
doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to
come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them, 'What
do you people want of one another?' they would be unable to explain.
And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: 'Do you
desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another's
company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into
one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one,
and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and
after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead
of two--I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you
are satisfied to attain this?'--there is not a man of them who when he
heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this
meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two,
was the very expression of his ancient need (compare Arist. Pol.). And
the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole,
and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a
time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of
mankind God has dispersed us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into
villages by the Lacedaemonians (compare Arist. Pol.). And if we are not
obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again
and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures having only
half a nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be
like tallies. Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may
avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is to us the lord and
minister; and let no one oppose him--he is the enemy of the gods who
opposes him. For if we are friends of the God and at peace with him we
shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at
present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not to make
fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying to Pausanias and
Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly nature, and belong to
the class which I have been describing. But my words have a wider
application --they include men and women everywhere; and I believe that
if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his
primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be
happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree
and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such an
union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love. Wherefore,
if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit, we must praise
the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this
life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future,
for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our
original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed. This,
Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which, although different to
yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your
ridicule, in order that each may have his turn; each, or rather either,
for Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.

Indeed, I am
not going to attack you, said Eryximachus, for I thought your speech
charming, and did I not know that Agathon and Socrates are masters in
the art of love, I should be really afraid that they would have nothing
to say, after the world of things which have been said already. But,
for all that, I am not without hopes.

Socrates said: You played
your part well, Eryximachus; but if you were as I am now, or rather as
I shall be when Agathon has spoken, you would, indeed, be in a great
strait.

You want to cast a spell over me, Socrates, said
Agathon, in the hope that I may be disconcerted at the expectation
raised among the audience that I shall speak well.

I should be
strangely forgetful, Agathon replied Socrates, of the courage and
magnanimity which you showed when your own compositions were about to
be exhibited, and you came upon the stage with the actors and faced the
vast theatre altogether undismayed, if I thought that your nerves could
be fluttered at a small party of friends.

Do you think,
Socrates, said Agathon, that my head is so full of the theatre as not
to know how much more formidable to a man of sense a few good judges
are than many fools?

Nay, replied Socrates, I should be very
wrong in attributing to you, Agathon, that or any other want of
refinement. And I am quite aware that if you happened to meet with any
whom you thought wise, you would care for their opinion much more than
for that of the many. But then we, having been a part of the foolish
many in the theatre, cannot be regarded as the select wise; though I
know that if you chanced to be in the presence, not of one of
ourselves, but of some really wise man, you would be ashamed of
disgracing yourself before him--would you not?

Yes, said Agathon.

But before the many you would not be ashamed, if you thought that you
were doing something disgraceful in their presence?

Here
Phaedrus interrupted them, saying: not answer him, my dear Agathon; for
if he can only get a partner with whom he can talk, especially a good-
looking one, he will no longer care about the completion of our plan.
Now I love to hear him talk; but just at present I must not forget the
encomium on Love which I ought to receive from him and from every one.
When you and he have paid your tribute to the god, then you may talk.

Very
good, Phaedrus, said Agathon; I see no reason why I should not proceed
with my speech, as I shall have many other opportunities of conversing
with Socrates. Let me say first how I ought to speak, and then speak:--

The
previous speakers, instead of praising the god Love, or unfolding his
nature, appear to have congratulated mankind on the benefits which he
confers upon them. But I would rather praise the god first, and then
speak of his gifts; this is always the right way of praising
everything. May I say without impiety or offence, that of all the
blessed gods he is the most blessed because he is the fairest and best?
And he is the fairest: for, in the first place, he is the youngest, and
of his youth he is himself the witness, fleeing out of the way of age,
who is swift enough, swifter truly than most of us like:--Love hates
him and will not come near him; but youth and love live and move
together--like to like, as the proverb says. Many things were said by
Phaedrus about Love in which I agree with him; but I cannot agree that
he is older than Iapetus and Kronos:--not so; I maintain him to be the
youngest of the gods, and youthful ever. The ancient doings among the
gods of which Hesiod and Parmenides spoke, if the tradition of them be
true, were done of Necessity and not of Love; had Love been in those
days, there would have been no chaining or mutilation of the gods, or
other violence, but peace and sweetness, as there is now in heaven,
since the rule of Love began. Love is young and also tender; he ought
to have a poet like Homer to describe his tenderness, as Homer says of
Ate, that she is a goddess and tender:--

'Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps, Not on the ground but on
the heads of men:'

herein
is an excellent proof of her tenderness,--that she walks not upon the
hard but upon the soft. Let us adduce a similar proof of the tenderness
of Love; for he walks not upon the earth, nor yet upon the skulls of
men, which are not so very soft, but in the hearts and souls of both
gods and men, which are of all things the softest: in them he walks and
dwells and makes his home. Not in every soul without exception, for
where there is hardness he departs, where there is softness there he
dwells; and nestling always with his feet and in all manner of ways in
the softest of soft places, how can he be other than the softest of all
things? Of a truth he is the tenderest as well as the youngest, and
also he is of flexile form; for if he were hard and without flexure he
could not enfold all things, or wind his way into and out of every soul
of man undiscovered. And a proof of his flexibility and symmetry of
form is his grace, which is universally admitted to be in an especial
manner the attribute of Love; ungrace and love are always at war with
one another. The fairness of his complexion is revealed by his
habitation among the flowers; for he dwells not amid bloomless or
fading beauties, whether of body or soul or aught else, but in the
place of flowers and scents, there he sits and abides. Concerning the
beauty of the god I have said enough; and yet there remains much more
which I might say. Of his virtue I have now to speak: his greatest
glory is that he can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any god or
any man; for he suffers not by force if he suffers; force comes not
near him, neither when he acts does he act by force. For all men in all
things serve him of their own free will, and where there is voluntary
agreement, there, as the laws which are the lords of the city say, is
justice. And not only is he just but exceedingly temperate, for
Temperance is the acknowledged ruler of the pleasures and desires, and
no pleasure ever masters Love; he is their master and they are his
servants; and if he conquers them he must be temperate indeed. As to
courage, even the God of War is no match for him; he is the captive and
Love is the lord, for love, the love of Aphrodite, masters him, as the
tale runs; and the master is stronger than the servant. And if he
conquers the bravest of all others, he must be himself the bravest. Of
his courage and justice and temperance I have spoken, but I have yet to
speak of his wisdom; and according to the measure of my ability I must
try to do my best. In the first place he is a poet (and here, like
Eryximachus, I magnify my art), and he is also the source of poesy in
others, which he could not be if he were not himself a poet. And at the
touch of him every one becomes a poet, even though he had no music in
him before (A fragment of the Sthenoaoea of Euripides.); this also is a
proof that Love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts;
for no one can give to another that which he has not himself, or teach
that of which he has no knowledge. Who will deny that the creation of
the animals is his doing? Are they not all the works of his wisdom,
born and begotten of him? And as to the artists, do we not know that he
only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?--he whom Love
touches not walks in darkness. The arts of medicine and archery and
divination were discovered by Apollo, under the guidance of love and
desire; so that he too is a disciple of Love. Also the melody of the
Muses, the metallurgy of Hephaestus, the weaving of Athene, the empire
of Zeus over gods and men, are all due to Love, who was the inventor of
them. And so Love set in order the empire of the gods--the love of
beauty, as is evident, for with deformity Love has no concern. In the
days of old, as I began by saying, dreadful deeds were done among the
gods, for they were ruled by Necessity; but now since the birth of
Love, and from the Love of the beautiful, has sprung every good in
heaven and earth. Therefore, Phaedrus, I say of Love that he is the
fairest and best in himself, and the cause of what is fairest and best
in all other things. And there comes into my mind a line of poetry in
which he is said to be the god who

'Gives peace on earth and calms the stormy deep, Who stills the winds
and bids the sufferer sleep.'

This
is he who empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection,
who makes them to meet together at banquets such as these: in
sacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord--who sends courtesy and
sends away discourtesy, who gives kindness ever and never gives
unkindness; the friend of the good, the wonder of the wise, the
amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and
precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy,
luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace; regardful of the good,
regardless of the evil: in every word, work, wish, fear--saviour,
pilot, comrade, helper; glory of gods and men, leader best and
brightest: in whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in
his honour and joining in that sweet strain with which love charms the
souls of gods and men. Such is the speech, Phaedrus, half-playful, yet
having a certain measure of seriousness, which, according to my
ability, I dedicate to the god.

When Agathon had done speaking,
Aristodemus said that there was a general cheer; the young man was
thought to have spoken in a manner worthy of himself, and of the god.
And Socrates, looking at Eryximachus, said: Tell me, son of Acumenus,
was there not reason in my fears? and was I not a true prophet when I
said that Agathon would make a wonderful oration, and that I should be
in a strait?

The part of the prophecy which concerns Agathon,
replied Eryximachus, appears to me to be true; but not the other
part--that you will be in a strait.

Why, my dear friend, said
Socrates, must not I or any one be in a strait who has to speak after
he has heard such a rich and varied discourse? I am especially struck
with the beauty of the concluding words--who could listen to them
without amazement? When I reflected on the immeasurable inferiority of
my own powers, I was ready to run away for shame, if there had been a
possibility of escape. For I was reminded of Gorgias, and at the end of
his speech I fancied that Agathon was shaking at me the Gorginian or
Gorgonian head of the great master of rhetoric, which was simply to
turn me and my speech into stone, as Homer says (Odyssey), and strike
me dumb. And then I perceived how foolish I had been in consenting to
take my turn with you in praising love, and saying that I too was a
master of the art, when I really had no conception how anything ought
to be praised. For in my simplicity I imagined that the topics of
praise should be true, and that this being presupposed, out of the true
the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the best
manner. And I felt quite proud, thinking that I knew the nature of true
praise, and should speak well. Whereas I now see that the intention was
to attribute to Love every species of greatness and glory, whether
really belonging to him or not, without regard to truth or
falsehood--that was no matter; for the original proposal seems to have
been not that each of you should really praise Love, but only that you
should appear to praise him. And so you attribute to Love every
imaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere; and you say
that 'he is all this,' and 'the cause of all that,' making him appear
the fairest and best of all to those who know him not, for you cannot
impose upon those who know him. And a noble and solemn hymn of praise
have you rehearsed. But as I misunderstood the nature of the praise
when I said that I would take my turn, I must beg to be absolved from
the promise which I made in ignorance, and which (as Euripides would
say (Eurip. Hyppolytus)) was a promise of the lips and not of the mind.
Farewell then to such a strain: for I do not praise in that way; no,
indeed, I cannot. But if you like to hear the truth about love, I am
ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself
ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you. Say then, Phaedrus,
whether you would like to have the truth about love, spoken in any
words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the
time. Will that be agreeable to you?

Aristodemus said that
Phaedrus and the company bid him speak in any manner which he thought
best. Then, he added, let me have your permission first to ask Agathon
a few more questions, in order that I may take his admissions as the
premisses of my discourse.

I grant the permission, said Phaedrus: put your questions. Socrates
then proceeded as follows:--

In
the magnificent oration which you have just uttered, I think that you
were right, my dear Agathon, in proposing to speak of the nature of
Love first and afterwards of his works--that is a way of beginning
which I very much approve. And as you have spoken so eloquently of his
nature, may I ask you further, Whether love is the love of something or
of nothing? And here I must explain myself: I do not want you to say
that love is the love of a father or the love of a mother--that would
be ridiculous; but to answer as you would, if I asked is a father a
father of something? to which you would find no difficulty in replying,
of a son or daughter: and the answer would be right.

Very true, said Agathon.

And you would say the same of a mother?

He assented.

Yet
let me ask you one more question in order to illustrate my meaning: Is
not a brother to be regarded essentially as a brother of something?

Certainly, he replied.

That is, of a brother or sister?

Yes, he said.

And now, said Socrates, I will ask about Love:--Is Love of something or
of nothing?

Of something, surely, he replied.

Keep in mind what this is, and tell me what I want to know--whether
Love desires that of which love is.

Yes, surely.

And does he possess, or does he not possess, that which he loves and
desires?

Probably not, I should say.

Nay,
replied Socrates, I would have you consider whether 'necessarily' is
not rather the word. The inference that he who desires something is in
want of something, and that he who desires nothing is in want of
nothing, is in my judgment, Agathon, absolutely and necessarily true.
What do you think?

I agree with you, said Agathon.

Very good. Would he who is great, desire to be great, or he who is
strong, desire to be strong?

That would be inconsistent with our previous admissions.

True. For he who is anything cannot want to be that which he is?

Very true.

And
yet, added Socrates, if a man being strong desired to be strong, or
being swift desired to be swift, or being healthy desired to be
healthy, in that case he might be thought to desire something which he
already has or is. I give the example in order that we may avoid
misconception. For the possessors of these qualities, Agathon, must be
supposed to have their respective advantages at the time, whether they
choose or not; and who can desire that which he has? Therefore, when a
person says, I am well and wish to be well, or I am rich and wish to be
rich, and I desire simply to have what I have--to him we shall reply:
'You, my friend, having wealth and health and strength, want to have
the continuance of them; for at this moment, whether you choose or no,
you have them. And when you say, I desire that which I have and nothing
else, is not your meaning that you want to have what you now have in
the future?' He must agree with us--must he not?

He must, replied Agathon.

Then,
said Socrates, he desires that what he has at present may be preserved
to him in the future, which is equivalent to saying that he desires
something which is non-existent to him, and which as yet he has not got:

Very true, he said.

Then
he and every one who desires, desires that which he has not already,
and which is future and not present, and which he has not, and is not,
and of which he is in want;--these are the sort of things which love
and desire seek?

Very true, he said.

Then now, said
Socrates, let us recapitulate the argument. First, is not love of
something, and of something too which is wanting to a man?

Yes, he replied.

Remember
further what you said in your speech, or if you do not remember I will
remind you: you said that the love of the beautiful set in order the
empire of the gods, for that of deformed things there is no love--did
you not say something of that kind?

Yes, said Agathon.

Yes, my friend, and the remark was a just one. And if this is true,
Love is the love of beauty and not of deformity?

He assented.

And the admission has been already made that Love is of something which
a man wants and has not?

True, he said.

Then Love wants and has not beauty?

Certainly, he replied.

And would you call that beautiful which wants and does not possess
beauty?

Certainly not.

Then would you still say that love is beautiful?

Agathon replied: I fear that I did not understand what I was saying.

You
made a very good speech, Agathon, replied Socrates; but there is yet
one small question which I would fain ask:--Is not the good also the
beautiful?

Yes.

Then in wanting the beautiful, love wants also the good?

I cannot refute you, Socrates, said Agathon:--Let us assume that what
you say is true.

Say rather, beloved Agathon, that you cannot refute the truth; for
Socrates is easily refuted.

And
now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I
heard from Diotima of Mantineia (compare 1 Alcibiades), a woman wise in
this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when
the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague,
delayed the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of
love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the
admissions made by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same
which I made to the wise woman when she questioned me: I think that
this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as
well as I can (compare Gorgias). As you, Agathon, suggested (supra), I
must speak first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his
works. First I said to her in nearly the same words which he used to
me, that Love was a mighty god, and likewise fair; and she proved to me
as I proved to him that, by my own showing, Love was neither fair nor
good. 'What do you mean, Diotima,' I said, 'is love then evil and
foul?' 'Hush,' she cried; 'must that be foul which is not fair?'
'Certainly,' I said. 'And is that which is not wise, ignorant? do you
not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?' 'And what
may that be?' I said. 'Right opinion,' she replied; 'which, as you
know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can
knowledge be devoid of reason? nor again, ignorance, for neither can
ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean
between ignorance and wisdom.' 'Quite true,' I replied. 'Do not then
insist,' she said, 'that what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what
is not good evil; or infer that because love is not fair and good he is
therefore foul and evil; for he is in a mean between them.' 'Well,' I
said, 'Love is surely admitted by all to be a great god.' 'By those who
know or by those who do not know?' 'By all.' 'And how, Socrates,' she
said with a smile, 'can Love be acknowledged to be a great god by those
who say that he is not a god at all?' 'And who are they?' I said. 'You
and I are two of them,' she replied. 'How can that be?' I said. 'It is
quite intelligible,' she replied; 'for you yourself would acknowledge
that the gods are happy and fair--of course you would--would you dare
to say that any god was not?' 'Certainly not,' I replied. 'And you mean
by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair?'
'Yes.' 'And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires
those good and fair things of which he is in want?' 'Yes, I did.' 'But
how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair?'
'Impossible.' 'Then you see that you also deny the divinity of Love.'

'What
then is Love?' I asked; 'Is he mortal?' 'No.' 'What then?' 'As in the
former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean
between the two.' 'What is he, Diotima?' 'He is a great spirit
(daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine
and the mortal.' 'And what,' I said, 'is his power?' 'He interprets,'
she replied, 'between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the
gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and
replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which
divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through
him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and
mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way.
For God mingles not with man; but through Love all the intercourse and
converse of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The
wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as
that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or
intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love.'
'And who,' I said, 'was his father, and who his mother?' 'The tale,'
she said, 'will take time; nevertheless I will tell you. On the
birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god
Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the
guests. When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on
such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the
worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the
garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her
own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and
accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived Love, who partly
because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite
is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is
her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his
fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender
and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has
no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies
under the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses,
taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his
father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting
against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty
hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of
wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as
an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor
immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty,
and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's
nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and
so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a
mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is this:
No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already;
nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant
seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is
neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no
desire for that of which he feels no want.' 'But who then, Diotima,' I
said, 'are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the
foolish?' 'A child may answer that question,' she replied; 'they are
those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them. For
wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and
therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a
lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of
this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise,
and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature
of the spirit Love. The error in your conception of him was very
natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a
confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was
all beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate,
and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another
nature, and is such as I have described.'

I said, 'O thou
stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to be such as you
say, what is the use of him to men?' 'That, Socrates,' she replied, 'I
will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have already spoken;
and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But some one will
say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?--or rather let me
put the question more clearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful,
what does he desire?' I answered her 'That the beautiful may be his.'
'Still,' she said, 'the answer suggests a further question: What is
given by the possession of beauty?' 'To what you have asked,' I
replied, 'I have no answer ready.' 'Then,' she said, 'let me put the
word "good" in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once
more: If he who loves loves the good, what is it then that he loves?'
'The possession of the good,' I said. 'And what does he gain who
possesses the good?' 'Happiness,' I replied; 'there is less difficulty
in answering that question.' 'Yes,' she said, 'the happy are made happy
by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a
man desires happiness; the answer is already final.' 'You are right.' I
said. 'And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men
always desire their own good, or only some men?--what say you?' 'All
men,' I replied; 'the desire is common to all.' 'Why, then,' she
rejoined, 'are not all men, Socrates, said to love, but only some of
them? whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things.'
'I myself wonder,' I said, 'why this is.' 'There is nothing to wonder
at,' she replied; 'the reason is that one part of love is separated off
and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other
names.' 'Give an illustration,' I said. She answered me as follows:
'There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex and manifold. All
creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and
the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all
poets or makers.' 'Very true.' 'Still,' she said, 'you know that they
are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the
art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music
and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense
of the word are called poets.' 'Very true,' I said. 'And the same holds
of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and
happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they who are
drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of money-making
or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers--the name of the
whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form
only--they alone are said to love, or to be lovers.' 'I dare say,' I
replied, 'that you are right.' 'Yes,' she added, 'and you hear people
say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they
are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole,
unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off
their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil; for they
love not what is their own, unless perchance there be some one who
calls what belongs to him the good, and what belongs to another the
evil. For there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there
anything?' 'Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing.' 'Then,'
she said, 'the simple truth is, that men love the good.' 'Yes,' I said.
'To which must be added that they love the possession of the good?'
'Yes, that must be added.' 'And not only the possession, but the
everlasting possession of the good?' 'That must be added too.' 'Then
love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the
everlasting possession of the good?' 'That is most true.'

'Then
if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,' she said,
'what is the manner of the pursuit? what are they doing who show all
this eagerness and heat which is called love? and what is the object
which they have in view? Answer me.' 'Nay, Diotima,' I replied, 'if I
had known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I
have come to learn from you about this very matter.' 'Well,' she said,
'I will teach you:--The object which they have in view is birth in
beauty, whether of body or soul.' 'I do not understand you,' I said;
'the oracle requires an explanation.' 'I will make my meaning clearer,'
she replied. 'I mean to say, that all men are bringing to the birth in
their bodies and in their souls. There is a certain age at which human
nature is desirous of procreation--procreation which must be in beauty
and not in deformity; and this procreation is the union of man and
woman, and is a divine thing; for conception and generation are an
immortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they
can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine,
and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess
of parturition who presides at birth, and therefore, when approaching
beauty, the conceiving power is propitious, and diffusive, and benign,
and begets and bears fruit: at the sight of ugliness she frowns and
contracts and has a sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and
not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason
why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is
full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach
is the alleviation of the pain of travail. For love, Socrates, is not,
as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only.' 'What then?' 'The love
of generation and of birth in beauty.' 'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, indeed,'
she replied. 'But why of generation?' 'Because to the mortal creature,
generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,' she replied; 'and
if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession
of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with
good: Wherefore love is of immortality.'

All this she taught me
at various times when she spoke of love. And I remember her once saying
to me, 'What is the cause, Socrates, of love, and the attendant desire?
See you not how all animals, birds, as well as beasts, in their desire
of procreation, are in agony when they take the infection of love,
which begins with the desire of union; whereto is added the care of
offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle against the
strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will let
themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to
maintain their young. Man may be supposed to act thus from reason; but
why should animals have these passionate feelings? Can you tell me
why?' Again I replied that I did not know. She said to me: 'And do you
expect ever to become a master in the art of love, if you do not know
this?' 'But I have told you already, Diotima, that my ignorance is the
reason why I come to you; for I am conscious that I want a teacher;
tell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love.'
'Marvel not,' she said, 'if you believe that love is of the immortal,
as we have several times acknowledged; for here again, and on the same
principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be
everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by
generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in
the place of the old. Nay even in the life of the same individual there
is succession and not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet
in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which
every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a
perpetual process of loss and reparation--hair, flesh, bones, blood,
and the whole body are always changing. Which is true not only of the
body, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires,
pleasures, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but
are always coming and going; and equally true of knowledge, and what is
still more surprising to us mortals, not only do the sciences in
general spring up and decay, so that in respect of them we are never
the same; but each of them individually experiences a like change. For
what is implied in the word "recollection," but the departure of
knowledge, which is ever being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved
by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new,
according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are
preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old
worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence
behind--unlike the divine, which is always the same and not another?
And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal anything,
partakes of immortality; but the immortal in another way. Marvel not
then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that
universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.'

I
was astonished at her words, and said: 'Is this really true, O thou
wise Diotima?' And she answered with all the authority of an
accomplished sophist: 'Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;--think
only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness
of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of
an immortality of fame. They are ready to run all risks greater far
than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and
undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving
behind them a name which shall be eternal. Do you imagine that Alcestis
would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or
your own Codrus in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they
had not imagined that the memory of their virtues, which still survives
among us, would be immortal? Nay,' she said, 'I am persuaded that all
men do all things, and the better they are the more they do them, in
hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue; for they desire the
immortal.

'Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake
themselves to women and beget children--this is the character of their
love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and
giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the
future. But souls which are pregnant --for there certainly are men who
are more creative in their souls than in their bodies--conceive that
which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these
conceptions?--wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets
and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the
greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned
with the ordering of states and families, and which is called
temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these
implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity
desires to beget and generate. He wanders about seeking beauty that he
may beget offspring--for in deformity he will beget nothing--and
naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body; above
all when he finds a fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces
the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about
virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to
educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to
his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had
conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he
brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a
closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the
children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal.
Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would
not rather have their children than ordinary human ones? Who would not
emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have
preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or who would
not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours,
not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon,
too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there
are in many other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have
given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of
virtue of every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour
for the sake of children such as theirs; which were never raised in
honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children.

'These
are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may
enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of
these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will
lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my
utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would
proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful
forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one
such form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he
will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the
beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his
pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in
every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate
his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small
thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next
stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable
than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have
but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and
will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the
young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of
institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is
of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and
institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their
beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth
or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but
drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will
create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of
wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the
vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of
beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very
best attention:

'He who has been instructed thus far in the
things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order
and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a
nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of
all our former toils)--a nature which in the first place is
everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly,
not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in
one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another
relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to
others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the
bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any
other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth,
or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and
everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any
change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all
other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true
love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the
true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is
to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of
that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to
two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair
practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair
notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows
what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,' said the
stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should
live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you
once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and
garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you;
and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and
conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible--you
only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes
to see the true beauty--the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and
unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the
colours and vanities of human life--thither looking, and holding
converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that
communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be
enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has
hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and
nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if
mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?'

Such,
Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--were the
words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being
persuaded of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of
this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than love:
And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I
myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the
same, and praise the power and spirit of love according to the measure
of my ability now and ever.

The words which I have spoken, you, Phaedrus, may call an encomium of
love, or anything else which you please.

When
Socrates had done speaking, the company applauded, and Aristophanes was
beginning to say something in answer to the allusion which Socrates had
made to his own speech, when suddenly there was a great knocking at the
door of the house, as of revellers, and the sound of a flute-girl was
heard. Agathon told the attendants to go and see who were the
intruders. 'If they are friends of ours,' he said, 'invite them in, but
if not, say that the drinking is over.' A little while afterwards they
heard the voice of Alcibiades resounding in the court; he was in a
great state of intoxication, and kept roaring and shouting 'Where is
Agathon? Lead me to Agathon,' and at length, supported by the
flute-girl and some of his attendants, he found his way to them. 'Hail,
friends,' he said, appearing at the door crowned with a massive garland
of ivy and violets, his head flowing with ribands. 'Will you have a
very drunken man as a companion of your revels? Or shall I crown
Agathon, which was my intention in coming, and go away? For I was
unable to come yesterday, and therefore I am here to-day, carrying on
my head these ribands, that taking them from my own head, I may crown
the head of this fairest and wisest of men, as I may be allowed to call
him. Will you laugh at me because I am drunk? Yet I know very well that
I am speaking the truth, although you may laugh. But first tell me; if
I come in shall we have the understanding of which I spoke (supra Will
you have a very drunken man? etc.)? Will you drink with me or not?'

The
company were vociferous in begging that he would take his place among
them, and Agathon specially invited him. Thereupon he was led in by the
people who were with him; and as he was being led, intending to crown
Agathon, he took the ribands from his own head and held them in front
of his eyes; he was thus prevented from seeing Socrates, who made way
for him, and Alcibiades took the vacant place between Agathon and
Socrates, and in taking the place he embraced Agathon and crowned him.
Take off his sandals, said Agathon, and let him make a third on the
same couch.

By all means; but who makes the third partner in our
revels? said Alcibiades, turning round and starting up as he caught
sight of Socrates. By Heracles, he said, what is this? here is Socrates
always lying in wait for me, and always, as his way is, coming out at
all sorts of unsuspected places: and now, what have you to say for
yourself, and why are you lying here, where I perceive that you have
contrived to find a place, not by a joker or lover of jokes, like
Aristophanes, but by the fairest of the company?

Socrates turned
to Agathon and said: I must ask you to protect me, Agathon; for the
passion of this man has grown quite a serious matter to me. Since I
became his admirer I have never been allowed to speak to any other fair
one, or so much as to look at them. If I do, he goes wild with envy and
jealousy, and not only abuses me but can hardly keep his hands off me,
and at this moment he may do me some harm. Please to see to this, and
either reconcile me to him, or, if he attempts violence, protect me, as
I am in bodily fear of his mad and passionate attempts.

There
can never be reconciliation between you and me, said Alcibiades; but
for the present I will defer your chastisement. And I must beg you,
Agathon, to give me back some of the ribands that I may crown the
marvellous head of this universal despot--I would not have him complain
of me for crowning you, and neglecting him, who in conversation is the
conqueror of all mankind; and this not only once, as you were the day
before yesterday, but always. Whereupon, taking some of the ribands, he
crowned Socrates, and again reclined.

Then he said: You seem, my
friends, to be sober, which is a thing not to be endured; you must
drink--for that was the agreement under which I was admitted--and I
elect myself master of the feast until you are well drunk. Let us have
a large goblet, Agathon, or rather, he said, addressing the attendant,
bring me that wine-cooler. The wine-cooler which had caught his eye was
a vessel holding more than two quarts--this he filled and emptied, and
bade the attendant fill it again for Socrates. Observe, my friends,
said Alcibiades, that this ingenious trick of mine will have no effect
on Socrates, for he can drink any quantity of wine and not be at all
nearer being drunk. Socrates drank the cup which the attendant filled
for him.

Eryximachus said: What is this, Alcibiades? Are we to
have neither conversation nor singing over our cups; but simply to
drink as if we were thirsty?

Well,
said Eryximachus, before you appeared we had passed a resolution that
each one of us in turn should make a speech in praise of love, and as
good a one as he could: the turn was passed round from left to right;
and as all of us have spoken, and you have not spoken but have well
drunken, you ought to speak, and then impose upon Socrates any task
which you please, and he on his right hand neighbour, and so on.

That
is good, Eryximachus, said Alcibiades; and yet the comparison of a
drunken man's speech with those of sober men is hardly fair; and I
should like to know, sweet friend, whether you really believe what
Socrates was just now saying; for I can assure you that the very
reverse is the fact, and that if I praise any one but himself in his
presence, whether God or man, he will hardly keep his hands off me.

For shame, said Socrates.

Hold your tongue, said Alcibiades, for by Poseidon, there is no one
else whom I will praise when you are of the company.

Well then, said Eryximachus, if you like praise Socrates.

What do you think, Eryximachus? said Alcibiades: shall I attack him and
inflict the punishment before you all?

What are you about? said Socrates; are you going to raise a laugh at my
expense? Is that the meaning of your praise?

I am going to speak the truth, if you will permit me.

I not only permit, but exhort you to speak the truth.

Then
I will begin at once, said Alcibiades, and if I say anything which is
not true, you may interrupt me if you will, and say 'that is a lie,'
though my intention is to speak the truth. But you must not wonder if I
speak any how as things come into my mind; for the fluent and orderly
enumeration of all your singularities is not a task which is easy to a
man in my condition.

And now, my boys, I shall praise Socrates
in a figure which will appear to him to be a caricature, and yet I
speak, not to make fun of him, but only for the truth's sake. I say,
that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus, which are set up in the
statuaries' shops, holding pipes and flutes in their mouths; and they
are made to open in the middle, and have images of gods inside them. I
say also that he is like Marsyas the satyr. You yourself will not deny,
Socrates, that your face is like that of a satyr. Aye, and there is a
resemblance in other points too. For example, you are a bully, as I can
prove by witnesses, if you will not confess. And are you not a
flute-player? That you are, and a performer far more wonderful than
Marsyas. He indeed with instruments used to charm the souls of men by
the power of his breath, and the players of his music do so still: for
the melodies of Olympus (compare Arist. Pol.) are derived from Marsyas
who taught them, and these, whether they are played by a great master
or by a miserable flute-girl, have a power which no others have; they
alone possess the soul and reveal the wants of those who have need of
gods and mysteries, because they are divine. But you produce the same
effect with your words only, and do not require the flute: that is the
difference between you and him. When we hear any other speaker, even a
very good one, he produces absolutely no effect upon us, or not much,
whereas the mere fragments of you and your words, even at second-hand,
and however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of every
man, woman, and child who comes within hearing of them. And if I were
not afraid that you would think me hopelessly drunk, I would have sworn
as well as spoken to the influence which they have always had and still
have over me. For my heart leaps within me more than that of any
Corybantian reveller, and my eyes rain tears when I hear them. And I
observe that many others are affected in the same manner. I have heard
Pericles and other great orators, and I thought that they spoke well,
but I never had any similar feeling; my soul was not stirred by them,
nor was I angry at the thought of my own slavish state. But this
Marsyas has often brought me to such a pass, that I have felt as if I
could hardly endure the life which I am leading (this, Socrates, you
will admit); and I am conscious that if I did not shut my ears against
him, and fly as from the voice of the siren, my fate would be like that
of others,--he would transfix me, and I should grow old sitting at his
feet. For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do,
neglecting the wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the
concerns of the Athenians; therefore I hold my ears and tear myself
away from him. And he is the only person who ever made me ashamed,
which you might think not to be in my nature, and there is no one else
who does the same. For I know that I cannot answer him or say that I
ought not to do as he bids, but when I leave his presence the love of
popularity gets the better of me. And therefore I run away and fly from
him, and when I see him I am ashamed of what I have confessed to him.
Many a time have I wished that he were dead, and yet I know that I
should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to die: so that I am at
my wit's end.

And this is what I and many others have suffered
from the flute-playing of this satyr. Yet hear me once more while I
show you how exact the image is, and how marvellous his power. For let
me tell you; none of you know him; but I will reveal him to you; having
begun, I must go on. See you how fond he is of the fair? He is always
with them and is always being smitten by them, and then again he knows
nothing and is ignorant of all things--such is the appearance which he
puts on. Is he not like a Silenus in this? To be sure he is: his outer
mask is the carved head of the Silenus; but, O my companions in drink,
when he is opened, what temperance there is residing within! Know you
that beauty and wealth and honour, at which the many wonder, are of no
account with him, and are utterly despised by him: he regards not at
all the persons who are gifted with them; mankind are nothing to him;
all his life is spent in mocking and flouting at them. But when I
opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him
divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to
do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded: they may have escaped the
observation of others, but I saw them. Now I fancied that he was
seriously enamoured of my beauty, and I thought that I should therefore
have a grand opportunity of hearing him tell what he knew, for I had a
wonderful opinion of the attractions of my youth. In the prosecution of
this design, when I next went to him, I sent away the attendant who
usually accompanied me (I will confess the whole truth, and beg you to
listen; and if I speak falsely, do you, Socrates, expose the
falsehood). Well, he and I were alone together, and I thought that when
there was nobody with us, I should hear him speak the language which
lovers use to their loves when they are by themselves, and I was
delighted. Nothing of the sort; he conversed as usual, and spent the
day with me and then went away. Afterwards I challenged him to the
palaestra; and he wrestled and closed with me several times when there
was no one present; I fancied that I might succeed in this manner. Not
a bit; I made no way with him. Lastly, as I had failed hitherto, I
thought that I must take stronger measures and attack him boldly, and,
as I had begun, not give him up, but see how matters stood between him
and me. So I invited him to sup with me, just as if he were a fair
youth, and I a designing lover. He was not easily persuaded to come; he
did, however, after a while accept the invitation, and when he came the
first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over,
and I had not the face to detain him. The second time, still in
pursuance of my design, after we had supped, I went on conversing far
into the night, and when he wanted to go away, I pretended that the
hour was late and that he had much better remain. So he lay down on the
couch next to me, the same on which he had supped, and there was no one
but ourselves sleeping in the apartment. All this may be told without
shame to any one. But what follows I could hardly tell you if I were
sober. Yet as the proverb says, 'In vino veritas,' whether with boys,
or without them (In allusion to two proverbs.); and therefore I must
speak. Nor, again, should I be justified in concealing the lofty
actions of Socrates when I come to praise him. Moreover I have felt the
serpent's sting; and he who has suffered, as they say, is willing to
tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely to
understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or
doings which have been wrung from his agony. For I have been bitten by
a more than viper's tooth; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or
in some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous
youth than any serpent's tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make
a man say or do anything. And you whom I see around me, Phaedrus and
Agathon and Eryximachus and Pausanias and Aristodemus and Aristophanes,
all of you, and I need not say Socrates himself, have had experience of
the same madness and passion in your longing after wisdom. Therefore
listen and excuse my doings then and my sayings now. But let the
attendants and other profane and unmannered persons close up the doors
of their ears.

When the lamp was put out and the servants had
gone away, I thought that I must be plain with him and have no more
ambiguity. So I gave him a shake, and I said: 'Socrates, are you
asleep?' 'No,' he said. 'Do you know what I am meditating? 'What are
you meditating?' he said. 'I think,' I replied, 'that of all the lovers
whom I have ever had you are the only one who is worthy of me, and you
appear to be too modest to speak. Now I feel that I should be a fool to
refuse you this or any other favour, and therefore I come to lay at
your feet all that I have and all that my friends have, in the hope
that you will assist me in the way of virtue, which I desire above all
things, and in which I believe that you can help me better than any one
else. And I should certainly have more reason to be ashamed of what
wise men would say if I were to refuse a favour to such as you, than of
what the world, who are mostly fools, would say of me if I granted it.'
To these words he replied in the ironical manner which is so
characteristic of him:--'Alcibiades, my friend, you have indeed an
elevated aim if what you say is true, and if there really is in me any
power by which you may become better; truly you must see in me some
rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any which I see in you.
And therefore, if you mean to share with me and to exchange beauty for
beauty, you will have greatly the advantage of me; you will gain true
beauty in return for appearance--like Diomede, gold in exchange for
brass. But look again, sweet friend, and see whether you are not
deceived in me. The mind begins to grow critical when the bodily eye
fails, and it will be a long time before you get old.' Hearing this, I
said: 'I have told you my purpose, which is quite serious, and do you
consider what you think best for you and me.' 'That is good,' he said;
'at some other time then we will consider and act as seems best about
this and about other matters.' Whereupon, I fancied that he was
smitten, and that the words which I had uttered like arrows had wounded
him, and so without waiting to hear more I got up, and throwing my coat
about him crept under his threadbare cloak, as the time of year was
winter, and there I lay during the whole night having this wonderful
monster in my arms. This again, Socrates, will not be denied by you.
And yet, notwithstanding all, he was so superior to my solicitations,
so contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty--which really,
as I fancied, had some attractions--hear, O judges; for judges you
shall be of the haughty virtue of Socrates--nothing more happened, but
in the morning when I awoke (let all the gods and goddesses be my
witnesses) I arose as from the couch of a father or an elder brother.

What
do you suppose must have been my feelings, after this rejection, at the
thought of my own dishonour? And yet I could not help wondering at his
natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness. I never imagined
that I could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and endurance.
And therefore I could not be angry with him or renounce his company,
any more than I could hope to win him. For I well knew that if Ajax
could not be wounded by steel, much less he by money; and my only
chance of captivating him by my personal attractions had failed. So I
was at my wit's end; no one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by
another. All this happened before he and I went on the expedition to
Potidaea; there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of
observing his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue. His endurance
was simply marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we were
compelled to go without food--on such occasions, which often happen in
time of war, he was superior not only to me but to everybody; there was
no one to be compared to him. Yet at a festival he was the only person
who had any real powers of enjoyment; though not willing to drink, he
could if compelled beat us all at that,--wonderful to relate! no human
being had ever seen Socrates drunk; and his powers, if I am not
mistaken, will be tested before long. His fortitude in enduring cold
was also surprising. There was a severe frost, for the winter in that
region is really tremendous, and everybody else either remained
indoors, or if they went out had on an amazing quantity of clothes, and
were well shod, and had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces: in the
midst of this, Socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his
ordinary dress marched better than the other soldiers who had shoes,
and they looked daggers at him because he seemed to despise them.

I have told you one tale, and now I must tell you another, which is
worth hearing,

'Of the doings and sufferings of the enduring man'

while
he was on the expedition. One morning he was thinking about something
which he could not resolve; he would not give it up, but continued
thinking from early dawn until noon--there he stood fixed in thought;
and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the rumour ran through the
wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking about
something ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening after
supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this was
not in winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in the
open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand all
night. There he stood until the following morning; and with the return
of light he offered up a prayer to the sun, and went his way (compare
supra). I will also tell, if you please--and indeed I am bound to
tell--of his courage in battle; for who but he saved my life? Now this
was the engagement in which I received the prize of valour: for I was
wounded and he would not leave me, but he rescued me and my arms; and
he ought to have received the prize of valour which the generals wanted
to confer on me partly on account of my rank, and I told them so,
(this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny), but he was more eager
than the generals that I and not he should have the prize. There was
another occasion on which his behaviour was very remarkable--in the
flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he served among
the heavy-armed,--I had a better opportunity of seeing him than at
Potidaea, for I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively
out of danger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops were in
flight, and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and
promised to remain with them; and there you might see him,
Aristophanes, as you describe (Aristoph. Clouds), just as he is in the
streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes,
calmly contemplating enemies as well as friends, and making very
intelligible to anybody, even from a distance, that whoever attacked
him would be likely to meet with a stout resistance; and in this way he
and his companion escaped--for this is the sort of man who is never
touched in war; those only are pursued who are running away headlong. I
particularly observed how superior he was to Laches in presence of
mind. Many are the marvels which I might narrate in praise of Socrates;
most of his ways might perhaps be paralleled in another man, but his
absolute unlikeness to any human being that is or ever has been is
perfectly astonishing. You may imagine Brasidas and others to have been
like Achilles; or you may imagine Nestor and Antenor to have been like
Pericles; and the same may be said of other famous men, but of this
strange being you will never be able to find any likeness, however
remote, either among men who now are or who ever have been--other than
that which I have already suggested of Silenus and the satyrs; and they
represent in a figure not only himself, but his words. For, although I
forgot to mention this to you before, his words are like the images of
Silenus which open; they are ridiculous when you first hear them; he
clothes himself in language that is like the skin of the wanton
satyr--for his talk is of pack-asses and smiths and cobblers and
curriers, and he is always repeating the same things in the same words
(compare Gorg.), so that any ignorant or inexperienced person might
feel disposed to laugh at him; but he who opens the bust and sees what
is within will find that they are the only words which have a meaning
in them, and also the most divine, abounding in fair images of virtue,
and of the widest comprehension, or rather extending to the whole duty
of a good and honourable man.

This, friends, is my praise of
Socrates. I have added my blame of him for his ill-treatment of me; and
he has ill-treated not only me, but Charmides the son of Glaucon, and
Euthydemus the son of Diocles, and many others in the same
way--beginning as their lover he has ended by making them pay their
addresses to him. Wherefore I say to you, Agathon, 'Be not deceived by
him; learn from me and take warning, and do not be a fool and learn by
experience, as the proverb says.'

When Alcibiades had finished,
there was a laugh at his outspokenness; for he seemed to be still in
love with Socrates. You are sober, Alcibiades, said Socrates, or you
would never have gone so far about to hide the purpose of your satyr's
praises, for all this long story is only an ingenious circumlocution,
of which the point comes in by the way at the end; you want to get up a
quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love
you and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love Agathon.
But the plot of this Satyric or Silenic drama has been detected, and
you must not allow him, Agathon, to set us at variance.

I
believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that
his intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide
us; but he shall gain nothing by that move; for I will go and lie on
the couch next to you.

Yes, yes, replied Socrates, by all means come here and lie on the couch
below me.

Alas,
said Alcibiades, how I am fooled by this man; he is determined to get
the better of me at every turn. I do beseech you, allow Agathon to lie
between us.

Certainly not, said Socrates, as you praised me, and
I in turn ought to praise my neighbour on the right, he will be out of
order in praising me again when he ought rather to be praised by me,
and I must entreat you to consent to this, and not be jealous, for I
have a great desire to praise the youth.

Hurrah! cried Agathon, I will rise instantly, that I may be praised by
Socrates.

The
usual way, said Alcibiades; where Socrates is, no one else has any
chance with the fair; and now how readily has he invented a specious
reason for attracting Agathon to himself.

Agathon arose in order
that he might take his place on the couch by Socrates, when suddenly a
band of revellers entered, and spoiled the order of the banquet. Some
one who was going out having left the door open, they had found their
way in, and made themselves at home; great confusion ensued, and every
one was compelled to drink large quantities of wine. Aristodemus said
that Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others went away--he himself fell
asleep, and as the nights were long took a good rest: he was awakened
towards daybreak by a crowing of cocks, and when he awoke, the others
were either asleep, or had gone away; there remained only Socrates,
Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out of a large goblet
which they passed round, and Socrates was discoursing to them.
Aristodemus was only half awake, and he did not hear the beginning of
the discourse; the chief thing which he remembered was Socrates
compelling the other two to acknowledge that the genius of comedy was
the same with that of tragedy, and that the true artist in tragedy was
an artist in comedy also. To this they were constrained to assent,
being drowsy, and not quite following the argument. And first of all
Aristophanes dropped off, then, when the day was already dawning,
Agathon. Socrates, having laid them to sleep, rose to depart;
Aristodemus, as his manner was, following him. At the Lyceum he took a
bath, and passed the day as usual. In the evening he retired to rest at
his own home.